After two years online, ORFC is back in-person! Come and gather with your friends and colleagues in the Main Hall as we celebrate the movement and reflect on all we’ve been through over the last three years. There will be short opening addresses from each of the ORFC’s partner organisations and musical performances by folk singer, Kate Huggett and the Shumei Taiko Ensemble, featuring Natural Agriculture farmers from Japan, the US and the UK.

For over four decades, Vandana Shiva, has vociferously advocated for farmers’ rights, indigenous knowledge, diversity, localisation, and real democracy. She has been at the forefront of seed-saving, food sovereignty, and connecting the dots between the destruction of nature and indiscriminate corporate greed. In her keynote talk, Dr. Shiva will reflect on a life of activism, recounted in her new memoir, Terra Viva. She shares memories of her childhood in post-partition India, and reflects on how…

2022 saw a meteoric rise in the price of all major fertilisers, triggering a ripple effect of extra costs across the farming industry. Long before the recent crisis, farmers have been investigating nature-friendly practices which give them independence from global markets. Through Innovative Farmers, groups of farmers are teaming up with researchers to test new ideas on their farms. From developing low tech innovation into herbal leys, living mulches, and intercropping to researching the latest…

Experimentation has been a core element of many farmers’ and growers’ practice since the dawn of agriculture, and continues to influence day-to-day decision making at the farm level. However, in recent decades, top-down approaches to innovation in agriculture have dominated the formal research agenda, resulting in massive degradation of land, environment and local culture. There is an urgent need to recognise the value of farmers’ knowledge and research and the essential role it can play…

Aligning investment and finance decisions is critical to kickstart a transition to agroecology. Farmers can be a force for change, but what are investors looking for and how can policy and market frameworks support bold moves? What does supportive finance look like for farmers trying to access new investment or new environmental services markets as part of viable farm businesses? And what role can the UK’s financial institutions play in this?

How can we step off the dairy treadmill? Join farmers from the Food Ethics Council’s Dairy Project who are seeking to overcome lock-ins relating to dairy.

In the drive towards shorter and more farmer-focused supply chains, retailers play a key role. If we want to build real alternatives to the supermarket system, how do we support retailers and ensure they are a force for good in the chain from field to fork? How can retailers share logistics and support each other? What role do retailers play in growing the market for organic produce? And what does the future of ethical food…

An in-depth look at various ways to propagate perennials in an organic system.

In this session, we will explore the best of farming and food policy from across the UK nations that has the potential to enable a transition to agroecological farming and local food systems.