This lively discussion will focus on the value of species-rich grassland for nature, climate and people. We’ll discuss their ecosystem services, benefits at farm-level (eg climate, resilience, cost saving) and their wider contribution to public goods (flood mitigation, soil conservation, biodiversity). The session will cover evidence on carbon storage and sequestration potential, and implications of management approaches; and panellists will reflect on how farmers can incorporate species-rich grasslands into their business and access public and…

How do you go about finding the next stage for your farm if you have no family to take it on? What are useful paths and choices? Where do you start? When is the best time to look at succession? In this session, panellists will consider enterprise stacking, subcontracting activities, share farming, community engagement and feeding the nation (locally) as ways to bring others into a farm’s future. Succession also offers opportunities for entrant farmers…

Can we break the habit of using petroleum derived plastic based pigments for print and colour for consumer goods and packaging? Is there an alternative pigment source which is not reliant on global extractive industries? In this workshop we look at traditional local pigments which can be sourced from abundant plant waste streams such as windfall leaves and look at the wider circular system of harvesting colour in a way which can actually be beneficial…

Some of us are farmers before we become parents. For others it happens the other way around. Some choose farming as a lifestyle to raise a family and teach the next generation food security, sovereignty and animal husbandry. However farming and parenting match together, there are benefits - socially, environmentally, economically. Farming and parenting also have their challenges. Unreliable wages, weather fluctuations and long work hours. Demands on families are exacerbated by farming. Intergenerational expectations…

The Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest of 1217 inaugurated legal doctrines guaranteeing public access and use of land, water, forests, and myriad social and intellectual commons. Yet capitalist enterprises and complicit states have plundered, privatised and commodified them, generating vast wealth and power for a minority while laying waste to ecosystems, democracy, and social equity. This session features two activist-thinkers discussing how commoning can achieve structural transformation and cultural change. Guy Standing, an…

The Storm Desmond floods in 2015 cost the UK £1.6 Billion. Extreme weather patterns are impacting our farms, either with too much water or too little water. New research now shows the effectiveness of natural flood management and increasingly there is an acceptance that, for many communities, engineering our way out of crisis will not be possible – natural solutions may be the only solutions on the table. Hear from a scientist quantifying the effectiveness…

This session will bring together speakers from three generations and different backgrounds to discuss how they are working together to restore nature, shift towards regenerative agricultural practices and build community across 500 acres at Penpont - the UK’s largest intergenerational nature recovery project. Speakers will discuss how they have worked together across generations, the barriers they have overcome, the benefits they’ve seen in a context where younger generations are often excluded from land, and how…

This session will provide an update on the situation for small and local abattoirs in the UK. With further closures over the past year, many farmers are facing a crisis as they struggle to find an abattoir to meet their needs. Government funding is set to be rolled out at the start of 2024 and this session will provide an opportunity to find out more about the fund, who can apply and how farmers can…

This popular workshop is back, with a difference! Jenny and Angela will guide you gently through a practice that taps straight into intuition, instinct, embodied sense and emotional knowing. The workshop is open to those completely new to this approach, as well as returners from last year. Valuable for problem solving in numerous circumstances, including the challenges faced by agroecological projects large and small, the approach is both deep and highly practical, and can be…