Staggeringly, “humanity has wiped out 68% of global wildlife since 1970”, according to the WWF (2020). If that stat wasn’t terrifying enough, it's also been concluded that the annual rate of destruction is increasing. In other words, the eradication of the remaining 32% of global wildlife is speeding up! And the biggest cause cited is agriculture.

Urgent action is needed, and a growing number of voices in international conservation are demanding that humanity should…

Frances Moore Lappe’s bestselling book, Diet for a Small Planet was published in 1971 and taught America the social and personal significance of a new way of eating. Today, it remains just as relevant, exploring such critical themes as the connection between food and democracy.

Sharing her personal evolution and how this groundbreaking book changed her own life, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappé offers ORFC delegates the opportunity to share in her experiences of…

In the 1990s, famine in North Korea killed 3 million people; many surviving children “lacked full cognitive ability”. Rice yields had more than halved, falling from eight tonnes per hectare down to three tonnes due to a misplaced faith in artificial fertiliser and other agro-chemicals and widespread abandonment of grassland, livestock and crop rotations. The soil had died and physically collapsed. Globally, the farming industry remains dependent on these chemicals, leading to widespread decline in…

Award-winning inventive singer, folksong collector, conservationist and founder/director of The Nest Collective Sam Lee sings a special show of folksongs inspired by nature and for the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

Singing songs from his repertoire of ancient traditional British folk songs, this concert will dig deep into the numerous stunning songs that connected our forbearers to the land. For 15 years Sam has collected songs from across the UK and Ireland mostly recording the last…

At this time of multiple pandemics, of police violence, coronavirus, climate chaos, and unprecedented economic crisis, we are being called to put our food and land sovereignty dreams into deeper practice. Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous community farm in New York that raises vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs and poultry for people living under food apartheid, and is part of a growing movement to uphold everyone’s right to land, honor the people who grow our…

To put the world to rights – and it certainly needs putting to rights! – we need to re-build our lives around food and farming, particularly around the principles of Agroecology and Food Sovereignty. Radical change is called for, and to bring it about we need to dig deep: re-define our goals (what are we trying to achieve in life?); re-think and re-structure agriculture and the food culture that goes with it; re-think the underlying…

Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement, will share ideas from his latest book 'From What Is to What If', exploring how we have allowed our collective imagination to contract and dessicate at the worst time possible. A zero carbon future, with a sustainable, resilient agricultural system, will be achieved, he argues, through creating the best conditions for the imagination and through inspiring examples. The next 10 years need to be many things, but they…

Jairo Restrepo is a passionate educator and activist, known throughout South America for his practical support of small farmers as well as his campaigns for their rights in the face of powerful agribusiness. He is unique in that he argues for farmers’ autonomy and self-determination but also teaches an array of practical technologies and preparations to increase soil fertility and transform cropping. He offers tools and inspiration for farmers and activists alike.

In this talk,…

In this talk, Adilen Roque, National Coordinator of Peasant-to-Peasant Agroecological Movement of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) of Cuba, will explain the history of the peasant-to-peasant methodology, as well as how this methodology helped to spark an “Agroecological Revolution” in Cuba which today includes more than 100,000 peasant families growing healthy food for their local communities, and has made the country more resilient against the cruel 60-year economic blockade imposed by the United…