A former South Wales newspaper reporter has been crowned agricultural journalist of the year.

Roy Hancock, who worked for the Western Mail before becoming founding editor of the Welsh Assembly’s farming magazine Gwlad, picked up the honour from the Farmers’ Union of Wales.

He began his journalistic career in 1963 with the Aberystwyth-based Welsh Gazette before spending 25 years with the Cambrian News weeklies, nine of them as editor.

Roy was the Western Mail’s West Wales reporter for four-and-a-half years from 1996.

In 2001, he became founding editor and chief writer of Gwlad, which is distributed to 38,000 farmers across Wales.

Roy received an inscribed shepherd’s crook from FUW president Gareth Vaughan at the Royal Welsh Show, Europe’s biggest agricultural show.

Gareth said: “Roy is a very worthy candidate for this award.

“He has been covering the activities of the FUW in his various reporting roles for some 40 years which is something very few people can boast of these days.”