Feeding technology manufacturer Keenan presented its new award for published articles reporting agricultural innovation at an event in London last week.

The award was introduced last year in memory of company founder Richard Keenan, to highlight innovative thinking in the industry and to recognise the role of journalists in bringing it to a wider audience.

UK Market Director, Noel Keenan, presented the Keenan 'Innovation in Agriculture' journalism award to the winner, freelance machinery writer Peter Hill, at the annual Harvest Service and Lunch of the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists.

His article, published in Farmers Weekly, describes a novel grain moisture meter. The battery-powered Smartprobe has a simple 'traffic light' colour display that enables the user to see the temperature reading without having to clamber over the crop.

"We liked the way the article described the device but also explored in some detail how its inventor, farmer Micheal Summers, tackled design, manufacturing and distribution issues to turn it into a commercial product," said Noel Keenan.

Earlier this year, at a journalists' Guild reception during the Cereals Event, Peter Hill received the inaugural IAgrE prize for an article on GPS machine control published in Crops magazine. The Institution of Agricultural Engineers introduced the award to highlight the application of engineering within the land based sector.

The Keenan runner-up prize went to James Andrews of Farmers Weekly, for an article on remote machine data collection through telematics that, the judges said, unravelled the puzzling world of the subject, explaining in simple terms how the technology works.