Farmers Weekly - from a legacy system to an engaged community
Farmers Weekly, the UK’s leading agricultural publication, needed a way to unify and streamline how it gathered, moderated, and showcased user-generated content (UGC) from its highly engaged farming community.
Before Contribly, submissions arrived via scattered channels — email, social media posts, and private messages — making it hard to manage, moderate, and maximise the value of the content. With Contribly, Farmers Weekly brought everything into one place, making it easy for both the team and the audience to create, curate, and share stories that reflect life on UK farms.
Topline numbers:
Over 5,000 photo competition entries in 2023 — more than double the previous year
and then 3x the number of competition entries compared to previous years after that.
200 daily quality uploads, 99.9% of content published either on website/apps or in print
3x more engagement with UGC on social media - pulling community back to their websites
Farmers Weekly: Building a Year-Round Community Through Seamless UGC Integration
Farmers Weekly is the go-to publication for UK farmers, providing breaking agricultural news, business advice, features, and a weekly print magazine. Alongside its editorial content, Farmers Weekly runs major competitions, seasonal campaigns, and community-driven projects to connect farmers nationwide.
The challenge
The publication’s social presence was strong, but the process for collecting audience content was messy and inefficient:
Multiple submission channels — photos and stories arrived via email, Facebook messages, Instagram DMs, and more.
Time-consuming moderation — with no central system, sifting through entries to check for quality, copyright, and safe farming practices took considerable effort.
Missed opportunities for real-time engagement — content couldn’t be easily showcased as it came in, limiting audience interaction.
For a brand built on community and trust, these inefficiencies risked slowing down content production and missing opportunities to deepen audience connections.
How Contribly Addressed the Challenge
Contribly became Farmers Weekly’s central UGC hub — replacing scattered workflows with a simple, moderated, and instantly publishable process.
Key features and impact:
One central entry point — A single embedded gallery link on the Farmers Weekly site now funnels all competition and campaign entries into one place.
Instant moderation — Built-in approval tools mean unsafe or unsuitable images can be flagged instantly, ensuring published content aligns with farming best practice.
Seamless website integration — Contribly slots easily into Farmers Weekly’s WordPress site, allowing galleries and submission forms to be embedded directly into articles, event pages, and micro-sites.
Real-time publishing — Approved images appear immediately in public galleries, creating a self-updating page that encourages repeat visits and ongoing participation.
Data management — Copyright, consent, and contributor information are stored alongside each submission, ensuring compliance and easy rights management.
“Contribly allows us to bring everything together in one place and in a public forum so our users can see it in real time. Moderation tools give us control over what goes live, which is crucial in an industry where safety is so important.”
Implementation was quick, with the team embedding their first galleries into WordPress pages without developer input. The tool is now used not only for reader-submitted content but also for internal event coverage and photo showcases, making it a versatile part of Farmers Weekly’s publishing workflow.
The results
Quantitative results:
2.5x increase in competition entries — photo competition entries jumped from just under 2,000 in 2022 to over 5,000 in 2023.
Higher engagement rates — cross-promoting Contribly galleries via social media increased traffic to Farmers Weekly’s site.
Reduced admin workload — real-time publishing and centralised moderation removed the need for manual collation from multiple channels.
Qualitative benefits:
Content as story leads — submissions often come with rich backstories, giving journalists new leads for features and weekly “Photo of the Week” articles.
Evergreen seasonal galleries — Contribly powers year-round themed galleries, from harvest to Christmas on the farm, keeping audience participation high.
Event coverage showcase — The team now uses Contribly for internally produced galleries, such as the Farmers Weekly Question Time panel series, creating lasting digital assets from live events.
Martin Ward sums it up:
“We can create galleries for different seasons, moments, and events — and it’s so easy to embed them into our site. It’s become a core way of showcasing what’s happening in our audience’s lives, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to build a community.”
Don’t take it from us, here is what Farmers Weekly had to say:
By unifying their UGC workflow with Contribly, Farmers Weekly turned scattered submissions into an organised, moderated, and instantly publishable content stream. The result? More entries, richer stories, and stronger audience connections — all without adding admin burden to the team.
If your organisation is ready to fuel your stories with UGC — without the chaos, Contribly can help. From submission to story, instantly publishable.