Indigenous food systems, both in pre-Columbian times and now, are poorly understood by the Western world. Over the millenia, Indigenous food scientists have generated a wealth of biodiversity within the global food system, with 70% of the world's variety of foods come from the Americas. Indigenous peoples perfected–in hundreds of types of bioregions and ecotones)–low energy input-high energy output land management practices. For example, the Haíɫzaqv (ˈheɪltsək) Nation of British Columbia, Canada hand plant massive…

Agroecological food systems will not reach critical mass if there are just small “islands” of agroecological farms. Mechanisms for scaling up are essential. This session will explore how and why the state government of Andhra Pradesh, an Indian state with a population of 54 million, works with women's self help organizations to support millions of farmers to transition to agroecology. CMNF is one of the most promising initiatives in the world in massively scaling up…

**Many apologies, this session has now been cancelled due to ill health.**

Richard Perkins is an innovative farmer, educator and the author of the widely acclaimed manual Regenerative Agriculture. He is also the co-owner of Ridgedale Farm in Sweden where he teaches farm-scale permaculture. His blogs have been viewed more than 9 million times and he has over 100,000 Youtube subscribers for his live trainings and online courses.

Richard spent 2020, talking with past students…

In his talk, Tom Philpott will discuss his new book The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It, which argues that the US model of chemical-intensive, regionally concentrated agriculture is undermining the ecologies the two main places where it alights: the California Central Valley and the corn belt, centered around Iowa. He'll put the argument in a global context, explaining that the same set of transnational meat, grain-trading, and seed/pesticide companies…

The current agricultural system has forgotten the purpose of trees and plants and their benefits for all living beings on the planet, leading to an irreversible situation where temperatures are on the rise and the human race might not have a home in a few years. The signs are blatant; fires, drought, lack of water, higher extinction rates, etc. So what will we do to ensure our future?

Simple and efficient solutions exist and it…

Severine von Tscharner Fleming is an organic farmer and founder of Greenhorns - a radical, young farmers organisation in the US which produces the literary journal for working agarians, The New Farmers Almanac. Since 2013, Severine has also served as a founding board president of Agrarian Trust - a national organisation working in the framework of the commons to raise the issue of land succession.

In this session, Severine will deliver learnings from a decade…

This year more than any has shown how resilient agroecological farms are. Many farms in China's CSA network have performed very well during the pandemic, both economically as well as being responsive to the needs of the consumer who realised the essential necessity to eat good, healthy food to boost their immunity in the face of the "pandemic enemy”. The effect of this is that producer-consumer relationships have grown and changed in that the bond…

The discovery of bacteria as a cause of disease ushered in a 'sterile' era - giving us a century in which medicine and agriculture killed off germs, insects, weeds, and other perceived pests in hopes of improving life, without understanding that all living systems are nested, and that we cannot kill off parts of the biological workforce without threatening the whole. This 'get rid of bad things' approach now sneaks in everywhere, even with the…

To change the world you need to tell a story which will inspire change and that is exactly what Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer have done at La Ferme du Bec Hellouin. Described by Eliot Colman as the ‘United Nations of all the best sustainable farming ideas’, Perrine and Charles have drawn their inspiration and knowledge from so many different sources; they incorporate the modern techniques of bio-intensive ‘micro-agriculture’ into the broader context of permaculture, but…