WASHINGTON (October 5, 2017) – Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development today announced the winners of the Global Water-Agriculture Photo Contest, a competition established to call attention to water scarcity, water security, and food security.
During the two week contest time frame, SWFF received 856 eligible (1,191 total) photos from 50 countries that showcased incredible insight and artistry into innovations and people involved in the water and agriculture industry across the world. Photos were judged on subject matter, originality, technical excellence, composition, overall impact, and artistic merit.
Photos that focused on one or more of the following themes received the highest scores: agriculture, water, water and agriculture-related technology, and men and women working in agriculture.
First Place Single Photo ($500)
Photo Caption: Among some of the most fascinating things in the Southwestern region of Bangladesh is the beautiful floating guava market of Swarupkathi of Pirojpur. All of this started 125 years ago when one Purno Mondal from Nesarabad upazila brought back some guava seeds from Goya and planted them in his village home. The guava was a culinary hit with the locality and its fame gradually spread across the country. Today, guava is cultivated in five unions of Swarupkathi (presently known as Nesarabad) across 640 hectares of land. The eye-soothing guava orchards on canals over Jhalokathi’s Sugandha, Bishkhali, Gabkhan and Sandhya river are the Southern region’s main places of guava farming.
Every day, thousand of tons of guavas are supplied all across the country. Boats are the main transportation for supplying. Farmers carry the guavas onto the boats from the river-adjacent orchards. There are hundreds of boats filled with guava, and all the trades occur on boats. The floating market appears as the centre of Barisal’s (aka The Venice of Bengal) beauty. Nobody knows when the idea of this floating market began, but it’s a hundred-year old tradition. Development and modernization are taking over the country, but it’s surprising to see them not reaching to this river-oriented life yet. For more than 100 years, the local farmers have been experiencing the ups and downs of life along with the ebb and flow of the river.
From the Photographer: Azim Khan Ronnie was born in Dhaka and brought up in Bogra, Bangladesh. He has an utter passion for photography. His essential aim is to capture the moments of life and give them significance by making them static in time. He loves to travel and be in different places, meet new people, and enjoy the experience that photography offers, which is to capture Earth’s beautiful and awe-inspiring moments. He also loves to experiment with his photography.
Second Place Single Photo ($250)
Photo Caption: This photo shows a man watering the seedlings in a greenhouse. Water is life. Indeed, water is not only vital for human consumption, it is also essential in nurturing the plants which constitute to a large percentage of our food supply.
From the Photographer: Anthony Into is graduate of electronics and communications engineering who works in a BPO company. Photography keeps him occupied during off-work days. It’s an avenue where he can express himself and be creative. He’s glad that his beautiful country, Philippines, never runs out of inspiring subjects to capture.
Third Place Single Photo ($150)
Photo Caption: Many families living near the Teesta river, West Bengal, India are engaged in the water melon cultivation on the sandy soil of the river bed. They use the Teesta river water to irrigate the land with a hope of growing greenery on the sand.
From the Photographer: Sujan Sarkar is a school teacher. He lives in Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India. Photography is his passion. He takes photographs with love. He plays on happily in the layers of humanity. He likes to intimate with the subject matter and work out of compassion, respect, and understanding for the people and issues.
The 15 photo series prize has been eliminated from the competition due to the lack of valid submissions in the prize category.
About Securing Water for Food
The Securing Water for Food 2017 Global Water-Agriculture Photography Contest is sponsored and run by the Securing Water for Food Technical Assistance Facility. Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development helps farmers around the world grow more food using less water, enhance water storage, and improve the use of saline water and soil to produce food by ensuring that the entrepreneurs and scientists behind groundbreaking new approaches are getting the support they need to apply and expand their solutions around the world.
Since 2013, USAID, Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Government of South Africa, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands have invested $35 million and provided critical acceleration support to promote science and technology solutions that enable the production of more food with less water and/or make more water available for food production, processing, and distribution.
