It is more important than ever that farmers are able to share their work, product and stories directly with the wider world. Not just because it makes good business sense to be able to market your farm directly to customers, but also to share knowledge with other farmers, educate consumers on the realities of food production and help bridge the growing divide between urban and rural communities.

Our farm enterprises depend on customers, trusting and demanding our product, otherwise with so much choice in the world they will simply go elsewhere. Yet all too often we spend our time on the backfoot defending what we do, when the reality is we should be on the front foot selling what we do.

That is why GrowIN has teamed up with the gang at Just Farmers to run a one day training course for farmers in Northern Ireland interested in learning how to tell their story and how to do it effectively on a mobile phone. Anna Jones (farmers daughter from Wales, Nuffield Scholar, founder of Just Farmers, BBC Farming Today & Countryfile journalist and author of Divide - the relationship crisis between town & country) will lead the training alongside Alex Price (TV producer & director of 16 years covering Big Brother, Countryfile, Gardeners World and many other well known shows).

For those farmers who have been involved in the media before, this is not traditional media training. The focus of the day will be on you and equipping you with the confidence and practical knowledge on how to easily share your farming story and even help share stories from other farms. It will be farm based and will be a mix of indoor and outdoor learning.

1. The first part of the day will focus on building confidence about what makes an interesting story and how to tell it and sell it

2. The second part of the day will focus on the practicalities of filming on your phone and how to package up a short film about your farm

3. Participants will be set a challenge after the training to make a short film of a retired farmer talking about traditional farming methods in Northern Ireland and what can be learned from the past. The films will be shared on GrowIN as part of our work to facilitate knowledge transfer between different generations in farming families.

Spaces are limited for this training so please apply early.