For the last few months, farmer groups in India have been protesting. In the largest protest of its kind by farmer groups in over 3 decades, farmers have marched on the capital city of Delhi, occupying highways and launching strikes. They have received the support of all opposition parties in the country, of solidarity demonstrations internationally, of Indian trade unions and beyond.

The strike centres on a package of three laws passed by Narendra Modi’s…

Rogelio and his daughter Michel Simbaña of the Kitu-Kara Nation share with us their experiences of 20 years, starting with a mini organic garden and growing up to two interconnected farms in different ecosystems, their work with their local community preserving the Sacred Mountain Ilaló, and the organic shop they opened in February, just in time for the Covid-related food crisis.

Rogelio was born and raised as a poor indigenous farmer. When he was…

The transformation of the food system relies on the effective organising of locally rooted movements and struggles around the world. This work is impossible without challenging approaches rooted in the dominance of colonial languages (in particular English, French and Spanish) and without structures and platforms that ensure and facilitate for everyone’s voices and languages to be heard.

Agroecology at its heart respects the traditions and linguistic heritage of diverse land based cultures. Therefore, it…

Beekeeping is accessible to everyone: it doesn’t require ownership of land, capital investment or great time commitment, but it brings benefits of pollination and harvests of nutritious food and medicine. Local bees, local materials and the knowledge of local beekeepers provide all that is needed; skills in understanding bees and forage in the landscape can be learned. Recognising the dependence of bees on abundant and unpolluted landscapes becomes an incentive for beekeepers to protect and…

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has played a critical role in feeding local communities during the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has highlighted the weaknesses and gaps in our global food production and distribution systems. In contrast, smaller more local farms and direct sales models are being celebrated as more resilient and veg box customer numbers soared in 2020.

Join this session to hear from CSA farmers in Europe and the global CSA movement Urgenci, about the…

The importance of local, fresh, seasonal, healthy, sustainable food has gathered momentum, stimulated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the need for food of high nutritional quality has yet to be widely recognised.

We are increasingly aware of the links between the heath of our soil and nutrient content of the food we produce. In this session, we will explore such questions as: Has the decline in soil fertility led to poor nutritional quality food? And…

Being able to farm and to feed one’s family is fundamental to rebuilding the lives of rural people traumatised by conflict. For the physically disabled this was considered near impossible, but a new farming venture in Sierra Leone is changing that perception.

Already one of the world’s poorest countries, Sierra Leone was devastated by an eleven-year civil war in which tens of thousands of people died and many more thousands had limbs amputated. In 2014,…

Competition for land and water around the world is growing due to surging global demand for minerals and metals critical to transitions in the energy, industry and military sectors. Mining corporations and states are on a collision course with their own citizens, and with farming and fishing communities in particular.

In this session we will hear from community representatives on the frontlines of struggles in Finland, Colombia and Ireland to prevent mining from destroying…

A world of possibilities opens up when you forgo the hetero-normative binary. How can we transform agriculture and our food systems when we look at it through the lens of queer ecology and gender diversity? We’ll hear from food producers around the world who are challenging the heteronormative status quo, and, in doing so, are changing the way we think and interact with the natural world.