Now in its 11th year, the 2025 iteration of Wiki Loves Africa – now one of the largest annual photographic contests in Africa – launched on 1st March to celebrate Africa's agricultural processes and production. Photographers, videographers, filmmakers, and audiophiles (professional and skilled amateurs) are invited to enter. Entries will illustrate Wikipedia articles. Competition prizes total USD 6,500.

Open for Entries

Wiki In Africa (www.wikiinafrica.org) is thrilled to announce the launch of "Wiki Loves Africa 2025" (www.wikilovesafrica.net), a continental photo contest that invites submissions of photos, videos, audio, and graphics from across Africa. For over a decade, this annual contest has celebrated the vibrant cultures, traditions, heritage, innovations, production methods, landscapes, weatherscapes and creativity that pulses across the continent, representing Africa more diversely and inclusively online. 

This year, we’re turning the focus on food production with the theme, Farm To Plate, inviting submissions that capture the journey of our food, from fields, herds, rivers, and oceans and to the final dish on a plate. Submissions can capture the entire process from seed to plate, or part thereof. These can be in the forms of videos, audio, or photo essays. Portraits and, documentary that give us a window into the lives of the people working the land, factories, and restaurants — this includes depictions of farm products, agricultural machinery, people working on farms, food processing, cooking, plating, and everything in between. The growers, food technologists, processors, chefs and home cooks, those alchemists of cuisine that transform raw ingredients into the smorgasbord of supermarket food, street food, Michelin-star restaurant food, fast food, and home-cooked meals.

By participating, you will help to create a richer, more nuanced picture of Africa's creative and production landscape. Whether you're a professional photographer, a hobbyist, or someone who loves capturing life's moments, we invite you to share your perspective on 'Farm to Plate!'

Klein_River_Cheese_Making.jpg <https://w.wiki/DK9M>CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Capturing Cultivation and Cuisine

Submissions may cover diverse aspects of agriculture, such as fishery, livestock, poultry, and crop production. This can include cultivation (showing fields, orchards, and farmers nurturing crops), weeding, pest control, and harvesting (whether it's hand-picking or using machinery to gather ripe crops). You can also feature farm equipment like tractors and plows, as well as distribution centres and markets where produce is sorted, graded, and prepared for consumption.

Food transformation can be showcased, such as mills grinding grains into flour, factories canning and bottling produce, or artisanal bakeries crafting bread and pastries. Butchers can be seen expertly preparing meats, and other forms of food processing are also welcome.

The culinary arts are also a key part of this theme, highlighting how chefs and home cooks turn raw ingredients into mouth-watering dishes. This can include scenes of sizzling pans, steaming pots in restaurant kitchens, traditional home cooking, food styling, plating, and presentation. The use of kitchen tools, cooking techniques like grilling or roasting, and traditional methods such as wood-fired ovens are all important aspects to capture.

Ultimately, this theme celebrates the complex process of transforming raw farm produce into delicious, nutritious meals ready to be enjoyed.

File:Farmers in Igunga, Tanzania.jpg <https://w.wiki/DHwV> by Michaelgoima,, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Photography continues to play a key role in how we are seen, not just as Africans, but as black people from every corner of the world. Stereotypes and prejudice are incited by images, and if it’s used, yet again, to undermine those of us who are truly doing the difficult work, then we need to have some uncomfortable conversations.”

— Aida Muluneh, Ethiopian photographer. (From The problem with photojournalism and Africa, Al Jazeera, 2017)

Wiki Loves Africa not only changes how Africa is perceived but also provides a necessary visible platform to grow the skills of African professional photographers eager to present their visual artistry to the world. Over 10,000 photographers from 55 countries have submitted entries throughout Wiki Loves Africa’s history. This is no mean feat in a region where access to and access for professional photographers is notoriously low. World Press Photo’s annual competition laments that 2% of its global entries are submitted from Africa.

File:Harvesting seaweed in Jambiani.jpg <https://w.wiki/DHwc> by Yann Macherez,, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How to get involved

Wiki Loves Africa is open for entries until 30 April. Entries are accepted from anywhere globally but must represent ‘Africa’ and the theme of “Farm to Plate!” Over 30 local volunteer Wikimedia communities across Africa are hosting multiple events. Get in touch with your local groups and chapters to join photowalks, workshops, and edit-a-thons. All entries must be released under a free license and uploaded via Wikimedia Commons, the media library for Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia knowledge portals: bit.ly/wla25_enter

Entries are judged on their quality and relevance to the theme, as well as their encyclopaedic value. Winners will be announced (insert 2025 date).

Canola_Fileds_Overberg_CapeTown.jpg <https://w.wiki/DK9J>CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
How to enter

Each entry is directly added to Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository that provides many of the images used on Wikipedia. To participate, you only need to create a free Wikimedia Commons account.

1. Enter your photographs, videos, or audio files: please visit the competition portal.

2. Attend a local event or learn more about Wikimedia in your country, please visit this link providing access to each Wikimedia community.

3. Tell others about the Wiki Loves Africa competition or post your entries on social media using #WikiLovesAfrica, and tag @WikiLovesAfrica in your posts.