2010 - 2024

A discussion on using a whole landscape approach to soil fertility. Harnessing the relationships and interactions between trees and crops can help manage organic nitrogen more efficiently, growers can use ‘mobile’ green manures, by harvesting nitrogen rich leaf matter from elsewhere and applying it to cropland in a targeted manner. Much like the fertility-building clovers and vetches long-used by farmers, nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs such as alder and gorse work with bacteria in the…

Please note that this is a BPOC only community and solidarity space. Join Dawn Dublin and Dee Woods from the African and Caribbean Heritage Food Network for an exploration of ancestral knowledge and cultural practices in African, Afrodescendant and global majority food systems.

In September, organic veg box company Riverford sent an open letter to the CEOs of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl. This letter warned that British farming is “on its knees“ and called for supermarkets to #GetFairAboutFarming. The supporting petition written in partnership with Sustain, rocketed to over 75,000 signatures from the public within weeks, and has high-profile supporters including Deborah Meaden, Rick Stein, and Chris Packham. The petition calls for the Government to…

La Junquera is a major ecosystem restoration and farming project that stretches across thousands of hectares in Spain’s desertifying south. Although Spain is Europe’s most biodiverse country, the south is at the forefront of climate change, aggravated by the effects of intensive horticulture which illegally drain aquifers and destroy biodiversity.
La Junquera is part of a major movement to build a wildlife barrier - through nature restoration projects and farms - to prevent the…

Inspired by the Oxford Real Farming Conference, the Wales Real Food and Farming Conference celebrated its fifth event in November. We explore what it is, why it is needed, and its role in addressing some of the challenges facing food and farming in Wales in the 2020s. Join us for this mini birthday party!

Mainstream agricultural education faces the same crisis as industrial farming itself. There is an urgent need for an overhaul of agricultural learning to offer meaningful solutions to our food system chaos. How can
we create the spaces for a more radical pedagogy under the existing formal systems of education and training? What can we acquire about the learning process from agroecology and its practitioners? How can agroecology revolutionise the learning process itself? What kind…

The Anti-Oppression Circle is a network created and organised over the last three years. Its purpose is to hold space for those most marginalised in our society to have honest and transparent discussions around various topics related to systemic change and dismantling systems of oppression. Through this writing workshop, we will explore poetry from different cultures and contexts that is speaking to this purpose to help us apply the practices ourselves. We will share, reflect…

How can a farm reach net zero? This session focuses on the innovations of three farmers as part of a 43-strong community in Cornwall funded by the Climate Action Fund, part of the National Lottery Community Fund. The Farm Net Zero project is driven by farmers to improve farm resilience by reducing emissions from feed, fuel and fertilizer but at the same time increase soil health and ecosystem services. The speakers are part of an…

From labourers to landowners, livelihoods in agriculture are often precarious. A lack of funded pathways into farming makes careers in producing food both hard to access and difficult to sustain. Finding ways to support these livelihoods will be critical to building the resilient, sustainable and just local food systems we need. This is an interactive workshop as well as the launch of a new report, with findings from a year
of hosting conversations with…