SunMedia's senior agricultural journalist and Coast & Country editor Elaine Fisher has won the Horticulture New Zealand Journalism award for the second time in three years.

Elaine was presented the award for excellence in horticultural journalism by Leigh Catley of HortNZ at the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators' awards dinner in Wellington on Friday night.

Elaine Fisher, Editor of Coast & Country, has won the Horticulture New Zealand Journalism award for excellence in horticultural journalism.

She won the same award in 2011 with stories on the devastating impact of the vine disease Psa-V on the kiwifruit industry. This year's stories were about the remarkable come-back many in the industry have made from the disease and the renewed optimism among growers and postharvest operators.

Earlier this year Coast & Country, SunMedia's specialist monthly rural publication edited by Elaine, won the best All Round News Paper title in the Community Newspaper Awards and Elaine was runner-up in the best senior journalist associate award.

'It's very gratifying to receive these awards for stories which are only possible because the people I am privileged to interview and photograph so generously share their stories and knowledge with me so I can in turn share that with readers,” says Elaine.

'I am grateful to HortNZ for its sponsorship of the horticultural journalism award and to the guild for running the annual awards programme.”

Her awards coincide with the latest Nielsen Rural Readership survey which shows that 51 per cent of farmers in the Coast and Country circulation area read Coast & Country, and that within the Northern Region 5,400 exclusive readers of Coast & Country who do not read Waikato Times Farmer, choose to read only Coast & Country.

Three out of five Coast & Country readers read every monthly issue.

The Nielsen Rural Readership Survey 2014 (base: Northern Region) also showed the majority of readers spend between 16 minutes and two hours reading Coast & Country and that overall, readers value rural magazines and newspaper as a useful source of information for their businesses.

Other winners at the guild awards on Friday were:

OPSPRI New Zealand Rongo Award and Federated Farmers Broadcast Journalism Award, Benedict Collins, Radio New Zealand; DairyNZ Dairy Industry Journalism Award, Anne Boswell of the The Dairyman; Alliance Group Ltd Red Meat Industry Journalism Award, and Beef + Lamb New Zealand News Award, Stephen Bell, New Zealand Farmers Weekly; Federated Farmers Rural Photography Award, Kent Blechnnyden, of The Dominion Post; Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farm Business Writing Award, Lynda Gray of Country-Wide magazine; AgResearch Science Writers Award Jon Morgan, then of The Dominon Post; Rural Women of New Zealand Award, Sonita Chandar, The New Zealand Farmer; AGMARDT Agribusiness Award, Nigel Stirling of The New Zealand Farmers Weekly and the Agricultural Journalism Encouragement Award, Gerard Hutching of the Dominion Post.