Graham has been with FACE since its inception in 2001 and says that the honour for his services to education and farming is recognition of how far the organisation has come in a short time.
“This is a reward for everybody at FACE for what we have achieved in the space of just five years since the organisation was formed,” said Graham.
“There are lots of organisations who recognise that education is absolutely vital for the farming sector and particularly for the future of the sector.
“Ensuring that young people understand how food is produced and how farmers are looking after the environment is a key message to convey to the nation’s young people and getting that message across is a clear, strong and positive way is very important.
“What is so heartening is that FACE has 65 partner organisations plus several government agencies that we work extremely closely with and it is a credit to the agricultural sector that all these organisations have recognised the need to work collectively rather individually.
“Although the concept of FACE was built on a platform of previous educational initiatives, it was still very much a fresh start five years ago which had both a new mission and direction.
“So we have achieved an awful lot in that time in bringing the farming industry closer to the classroom. However, we also recognise that there is still much more work to be done.”
Graham believes that the next step for FACE is for the organisation to achieve the sort of brand recognition for farming and education that the Worldwide Fund For Nature has for wildlife conservation.
“It would be fantastic to think that FACE could become the automatic starting point for people when they have any enquiry relating to the educational side of agriculture,” he said.
“We have made a great start but although there is a clear direction for us to take, we know there is a lot of ground still to be covered and national recognition of this sort can only encourage us to achieve more.”
Graham started his educational career as a teacher before running an educational centre at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for Birmingham City Council. He became the Head of FACE in 2001.
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