2010 - 2024

Let’s discuss the elephant in the room during most discussions of agricultural transformation: the capitalist logics which shape how we currently grow, process, distribute, and eat food. Our panel will explore capital’s effects on farmers, the pressures it places on workers, and the ecological consequences of infinite growth on a finite planet. It will also feature the new union, Solidarity Across Land Trades (SALT), who will present their recent workers’ enquiry.We will open the discussion…

How can powerful storytelling further the good food and farming movement? Hear from seasoned journalists and producers on how a good story builds connection and mobilises the democratic voice of farmers, growers, and landworkers. Speakers with expertise in podcasting, broadcast journalism and magazine publishing will share their success stories of how they overcame obstacles and built inspiring stories that brought alternative farming practices to a wider audience. The panel discussion will be followed by an…

What is driving growing land inequality and what can be done to build land and food sovereignty? Land inequality and lack of access to land for marginalised food producers is a critical but overlooked driver of hunger and food insecurity, and a fundamental barrier to achieving food sovereignty. In a forthcoming report, IPES-Food investigates the dynamics of today’s land struggles – from growing land inequality and the financialisation of farmland to green grabs for false…

Every year we hear stories of the woeful incompetence of the Home Office to manage the hemp licensing process. UK farmers want to grow hemp, but the enormous amount of red tape makes even getting the licence a challenge without professional guidance. We need a hemp growers guild to collectively strategise how to make the necessary changes so that hemp is accessible to all farmers in the UK and not just those supplying big pharma.

How do we heal the wounds of colonial history? Oppression and harm continue to make and shape the world we share. This session explores ongoing work towards repair and asks what still needs to be done. This is bigger than a conversation about financial debt which is often the focus of reparations inquiry. But what constitutes repair and reclamation? What is the place of land workers in that conversation? What are the land stories that…

A farming journey, founded on the vital importance of meadows. The meadow is the mother of the farming system. We want to bring back this old saying with natural unfertilised meadows; to show you how to produce everything you need for a healthy life and sustainable business through increasing biodiversity using the meadow system. By feeding animals meadow hay you bring in micro- minerals and fertiliser to your land, enabling the creation of amazing produce,…

The power of pesticide companies and the drive for profit is hindering the efforts of campaigners and policy- makers when it comes to pesticide reduction. We will discuss the ways in which corporate influence on policy and science underpin injustice in global food systems. We will explore the topic of investors influencing, or withdrawing support for companies that are driving biodiversity decline and harming human health, and what we can learn from the climate movement…

Each of us has the power to change the food system three times a day- a truth obscured and mistold as a result of the systematic disconnect between kitchens and farms. The more we can do as farmers, chefs and food citizens to re-establish active lines of communication and cooperation, the more opportunities we can create for each other to feed into the transition to an agroecological food system. The session puts forward practical ways…

We shall discuss the pros and cons of natural burial. Can natural burial be rolled out across more farms as part of farm diversification? Is saturation level and proximity to existing sites an issue? We shall explore the topic of de-carbonising funerals and how natural burial can become mainstream as part of farm diversification. Could “planting our carbon bodies” become a valuable part of regenerative farming and can this help people connect with farming and…