2010 - 2024

Livestock use in farming systems is a polarising topic, from the drive to net zero to the degradation of arable soils, the topic is much discussed and at times misunderstood. This discussion session will present ideas and approaches that look to reframe the case for livestock in the landscape, present approaches that drive farmer decision making related to optimal livestock carrying capacity on farms and moves away from reducing animals’ role in the landscape to…

2023 saw food prices in the UK skyrocket. Combined with a spike in energy prices, the cost of living for families across the UK rose dramatically, pushing countless families deeper into poverty. Meanwhile, supermarkets continued to generate enormous profits. Hiding behind a cost-of-living smokescreen, they hiked up their prices and handed out billions in shareholder profits, all the while attempting to persuade us that price increases are an inevitable result of factors outside of their…

The move away from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since Brexit has represented a golden opportunity to reinvent agricultural policy for a greener future. Since food and farming policy is devolved, each nation has come up with its own agri-environmental schemes. Whether it be AECS, ELMS, SFS, or EFS, the core principles remain the same - public money for public goods. The past few years have not been an easy ride, with delays, mistakes…

What does it take for us to become deeply connected and in conversation with the land and those other-than-humans in our places? We remember back, to the language and lore of our land-based wisdom traditions, from a time not so long ago, to what it might be like to fully belong to the land. With 'folk memories' from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Africa.

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…

The UK imports 85% of its fruit and 43% of its vegetables. Countries we import from are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, while financial pressures are causing UK growers to leave the sector. Yet, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, market gardens are attracting new entrants, supplying local communities, integrating productive systems with biodiversity, sequestering carbon and engaging with the public. This session will launch the LWA’s new report ‘Horticulture across Four…

There is increasing evidence that nature-friendly and agroecological practices must play a key role in supporting healthy and resilient food systems while restoring nature across the farmed landscape. Yet somehow these systems are still relatively niche in the UK. Organic farming, for example, only covers 3% of UK farms. What more is needed to shift the narrative, and support truly transformative change in our food and farming systems? Using the Consensus on Food, Farming and…

In the last 20 years, in Andhra Pradesh, India, grassroots women in a secular movement of self-help groups are collectively transforming the food they grow, their families’ health, and increasing their income. They are the largest transition to agroecology in the world, simultaneously addressing rural livelihoods, nutritious food, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, climate change, water scarcity and pollution. Their True Cost Accounting measures social capital: collective action, trust and support, community cohesion (including confronting domestic…