2010 - 2023

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.

This session will set out a shared vision for how to find structured local support for farmers and communities to deliver resilience and climate action. It will demonstrate an integrated framework and the essential role of farmer collaboration and facilitation. It will help delegates understand how to contribute to creating a structure around the complex architecture of farm and community advice in a climate emergency. It will explore the many partnership roles needed to deliver…

A discussion of the benefits of creating space on working farms for people with learning disabilities and who are autistic or otherwise neurodiverse.

This session brings together community enterprises representing a variety of views about and experience of the part that social impact plays in their mission.

The UK’s industrial food system is buckling under a series of converging and mutually reinforcing crises: the cost of energy, the cost of off-farm inputs, the inaccessibility of land for new growers and the system’s tendency to pollute and deteriorate the ecosystems it relies on. This panel suggests that alternative forms of ownership could hold the key to a more just and ecologically regenerative food system.

In the UK, many of the landworkers within our movement are new entrants: people who haven’t been born into farming families, or who are new to agroecology. If you’re a new entrant of any age and involved in any kind of land work, join us for this session where we will share our experiences and inspiration as landworkers.