2010 - 2024

A pressing issue for global farming is the over-use of veterinary pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics and anthelmintics, and the resulting impacts on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and biodiversity loss. One of the ways to reduce antibiotic use on farms is to use well documented alternatives, such as homoeopathy and phytotherapy. In the UK, with so few homoeopathically trained vets in farm practice, farmers have found it difficult to know how best to do this. This talk will…

How can existing landowners adopt more responsible and progressive approaches to ownership that enable greater benefits and wider access? This session will explore the opportunities and challenges of different approaches to owning, holding, stewarding and sharing land in ways that strengthen the connection between people and land in times of transition. The panel will share their experience of different approaches to community involvement, such as B Corps, joint ventures, and the path to community ownership.…

With agriculture now constituting the largest biome habitat on Earth, the time has come to call a halt to the phoney war between farmers and environmental conservationists. How can we move beyond the polarised debate around rewilding and farming to explore the potential for agroecology to rewild agriculture itself? What is the significance and potential of agroecology and regenerative farming for nature recovery? How can we support nature recovery through food production? As the planet’s…

In the shadow of the climate crisis, the management of common land faces its biggest change since World War II. Focusing on the Lake District, this session will address the importance of upland commons for biodiversity, carbon, water storage and access – and for rural communities whose labour has shaped this landscape over millennia, underpinning its World Heritage Site inscription. The current government support scheme for farmers ends in 2024 and, with ELM far from…

The Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Programme (APCNF) is a highly successful government-led initiative involving millions of farmers and eight million hectares of land in India. It revolves around nine key agroecological principles, including the use of indigenous seed, cover crops and keeping soil disturbance to a minimum. Probably most importantly it offers a viable alternative to using chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. In 2020, members of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa…

In this session we will show how fibre crops have been rediscovered and are generating excitement in many applications from very low to very high tech applications. We will show how cultivation will address emissions and response to climate change in at least two big sectors. Transport and the building trade have an unacceptably high carbon footprint, which these crops can target; but they are also good for on-farm sustainable soil improvement, reduced inputs and…

This performance session looks at the ways in which folk music-making can map sociocultural change at land and sea. This relates to environment, landscape, activism and traditions. Lucy Beattie is a sheep farmer from the North West Highlands of Scotland. Lucy recently completed a PhD which looks at the connections between science and society. Luke Daniels is a folk musician originally from South Oxfordshire now living in Scotland. They will explore the concept of musician-as-science…

2022 saw the fourth women’s and non-binary farm hack - a participant created weekend where practical skills, knowledge and solidarity are shared, alongside a deep delve into the political and social implications of being women and non-binary landworkers and land justice activists. The film and discussion bring together many of the important elements of agroecology: land and food justice, peer to peer practical learning through the medium of farm hacks, and solidarity building and networking…

Deep Listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening. The practice includes listening to the sounds of daily life, nature, one’s own thoughts, imagination, and dreams. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness, and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth. Led by artist Jaimini Patel, the workshop…