Gather in the Main Hall as we open the 16th Oxford Real Farming Conference together! We’ll be hearing land songs from harpist Siwan Clark, gaining inspiration from movement leaders, and finishing with some lyrical treats from the wonderful Hot Poets. The opening plenary will also be available to watch via screens in the Assembly Room and the Old Library.

Speakers from three continents individually share their experience facilitating farm clusters to practically deliver more regenerative practices on farm — reflecting on commonalities around good facilitation as well as differences in practice. In the second half of the session Guy Watson leads the panel in a collective discussion on which practices might be suitable to transfer across continents to support climate adaptation as weather patterns shift.

Dairy is increasingly challenged for its environmental impact and its ongoing social licence with consumers. More and more farmers in the UK and further afield are exploring ways to do dairy differently, whether that’s enabling cow/calf contact, share milking with calves, integrating into arable systems or finding alternative routes to market that create stronger connections between the farm and the consumer. We will hear from farmers who are exploring these varied approaches and have been…

The use of agroecology as an ‘umbrella term’ for sustainable farming is leaving it vulnerable to cooption. As the term appears more and more in government policy, public discourse and even the PR of agrifood giants, there is a growing urgency to understand and defend agroecology as a social movement with strong political and social roots. This panel discussion will hear from farmers, activists and academics who are building a social movement for agroecology, to…

Under military occupation, Palestinian farmers face intensifying and catastrophic challenges across the territory. The Israeli military assault has weaponised hunger, systematically targeted food and water infrastructure, destroyed farmland and contaminated soils in Gaza. In the West Bank, land confiscations, settler attacks and restrictions on movement and trade have all accelerated at an unprecedented rate. This session discusses Palestine’s embattled food and farming heritage, with George McAllister who works on action-research in Gaza, and Cathi Pawson,…

New alliances are emerging between local governments and civil society to protect farmland and promote the development of agroecology in Europe. This session will be an opportunity to learn how local authorities can establish strategies to enhance regenerative use of public farmland and deliver public services from agriculture. We will dive into concrete examples of local government-led projects (Paris, France and Powys, Wales) and learn about the challenges they must meet to work on land…

Join Nature Friendly Farming Network’s Farming Champion Florence Mannerings to hear about her journey into nature friendly farming at Chilton Farm in Kent. Florence will explain how she and her family turned an intensive farm that was in a very poor state into a thriving dairy business where food production and nature work together. The talk will cover conservation grazing on a variety of landscapes, how hedgerow planting and pasture creation are improving resilience to…

By sharing the story of our first year operating Carmarthenshire’s Tool Library for Small-Scale Growers, our challenges as well as our successes, we hope to inspire other tool libraries. We’ll discuss how and why the initiative was funded and our co-design process, as well as exploring some of the practicalities of selecting tools, managing hires, lease agreements, membership options, maintenance and insurance. Whilst we certainly don’t have all the answers, there’ll be plenty of time…

Join Jenny Goodman, doctor and author of Getting Healthy in Toxic Times, for a lunchtime talk to hear her prescriptions for healing your body and the planet. Pesticides and synthetic fertilisers began as weapons of war, and as they travel from factory to soil to crops to food to people, they wreak havoc on all living cells. Jenny has seen the damage in her clinic, with diseases linked to these pollutants. But if dominant forms…