The inaugural Egg Farmer of the Year award, sponsored by AECL, was won by Danny Jones, the Managing Director of Pure Foods in Tasmania. The Diversification Farmer of the Year award was won by cage egg farmer, Brian Ahmed, from LTs Eggs in Victoria.

The awards were two of nine Kondinin Group Australian Farmer of the Year Award winners announced at a gala function at The Langham in Melbourne on 10 September.

The Egg Farmer of the Year award was open to egg farmers from all production systems around the country. The finalists were Kate Mason from Western Australia, Danny Jones from Tasmania and Brian Ahmed from Victoria.

AECL Managing Director, James Kellaway, said it was fantastic to see egg farmers such as Danny Jones win the inaugural Egg Farmer of the Year award and Brian Ahmed win the Diversification Farmer of the Year award.

"The Egg Farmer of the Year award is not about any particular farming system but about good farmers, committed to their farms, their hens, their customers, their staff and the industry – as Danny Jones has demonstrated in so many ways," Mr Kellaway said.

"The Diversification Farmer of the Year award recognises farmers like Brian who have created diverse farming businesses and Brian and his family are certainly high achievers in this regard with an egg farm, a café and a packaging business," he said.

"But I should also note that there are so many egg farmers out there doing great work who go largely unrecognised. These awards finally give two of them the recognition they deserve. "

Danny Jones said "it was great to be a finalist but to actually win it was very surprising. It means a lot to the industry to be recognised as part of mainstream Australian agriculture and it‘s really great to part of that in the inaugural award," he said.

Mr Ahmed said the award was not something he had been working towards "but it is nice to be acknowledged for the things you do." He was also a finalist in the Farmer of the Year Award.