2010 - 2024

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…

This moderated panel conversation features Dorn Cox, a US-based New Hampshire family farmer and open source technologist, and David Bollier, an American commons activist and scholar with the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (US). Cox has long been in the vanguard of using open source technologies to help improve crop yields, soil health, and ecosystem resilience, especially in the face of climate change. His 2023 book, The Great Regeneration, describes the use of free…

This is not a traditional panel and is run as a podcast discussion. It will explore, honour and celebrate experiences, wisdom and intergenerational practices of black and brown people in relation to land justice and presence in the environmental scene. The discussion will reflect on areas such as: professional and personal experiences, intersectionality of marginalisation/exclusion across different backgrounds, identities and abilities; access to land and opportunities working with land; nature connection; heritage and genetic memory.…

To meditate is to pay attention and be present in the here and now. During this meditation, led by Satish Kumar, we will pay attention to our body posture and our breath, through breathing in, breathing out, smiling, relaxing and letting go. We will pay attention to the four elements of which we are made; earth, air, fire and water and we will do so with gratitude. Please join this session to learn about how…

2007 marked a key moment in which small-scale food producers and their allies established a shared vision of food sovereignty and developed strategies to make it a reality. Over time, a robust global movement for food sovereignty emerged, gaining significant political recognition and playing a key role towards the democratisation of global food and agricultural arenas, and also influencing food sovereignty policies in various national contexts.

However, our achievements are now under threat due to…

Urgent action on climate change is needed, and reducing livestock production in the UK is often said to be part of the solution. But should reductions be focused on extensive grazing livestock, as is often argued? This session will bring together recent science with implications for how we understand the climate impacts of meat and dairy from different production systems. By considering this alongside the multiple social and environmental benefits that well-managed grasslands and grazing…

While in the field, farmers pioneer and share innovative regenerative practices, research councils continue to pour millions of pounds a year into tech-heavy, top-down solutions to the challenges faced by agriculture. This session will bring together academic researchers, funders and pioneering farmers to discuss how we can work better together. Through their own experiences of successful participatory research, panellists will explore differences in expectations, timescales and language which pose challenges to collaboration, and discuss what…

Industrialised livestock farming is a leading cause of river pollution in the UK, and is a hot topic with voters. The behaviour of sewage companies has grabbed headlines, but we want to turn attention to big agriculture companies who are profiting while overproduction of slurry and manure is destroying wildlife in our rivers. We will discuss the pressure on farmers to intensify, and the policy solutions, and practices on-farm that can turn this around, as…