The UK imports 85% of its fruit and 43% of its vegetables. Countries we import from are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, while financial pressures are causing UK growers to leave the sector. Yet, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, market gardens are attracting new entrants, supplying local communities, integrating productive systems with biodiversity, sequestering carbon and engaging with the public. This session will launch the LWA’s new report ‘Horticulture across Four…

There is increasing evidence that nature-friendly and agroecological practices must play a key role in supporting healthy and resilient food systems while restoring nature across the farmed landscape. Yet somehow these systems are still relatively niche in the UK. Organic farming, for example, only covers 3% of UK farms. What more is needed to shift the narrative, and support truly transformative change in our food and farming systems? Using the Consensus on Food, Farming and…

In the last 20 years, in Andhra Pradesh, India, grassroots women in a secular movement of self-help groups are collectively transforming the food they grow, their families’ health, and increasing their income. They are the largest transition to agroecology in the world, simultaneously addressing rural livelihoods, nutritious food, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, climate change, water scarcity and pollution. Their True Cost Accounting measures social capital: collective action, trust and support, community cohesion (including confronting domestic…

This moderated panel conversation features Dorn Cox, a US-based New Hampshire family farmer and open source technologist, and David Bollier, an American commons activist and scholar with the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (US). Cox has long been in the vanguard of using open source technologies to help improve crop yields, soil health, and ecosystem resilience, especially in the face of climate change. His 2023 book, The Great Regeneration, describes the use of free…

This is not a traditional panel and is run as a podcast discussion. It will explore, honour and celebrate experiences, wisdom and intergenerational practices of black and brown people in relation to land justice and presence in the environmental scene. The discussion will reflect on areas such as: professional and personal experiences, intersectionality of marginalisation/exclusion across different backgrounds, identities and abilities; access to land and opportunities working with land; nature connection; heritage and genetic memory.…

Resilience is best described as the ability to respond to change, but many things can affect this ability, and not all are within our control. This interactive session will introduce the concept of resilience as a series of patterns, patterns that we can identify, practice and grow. We’ll explore the internal drivers that push us towards burnout or exhaustion and the feedback loops we’re most responsive to and that affect our ability to prioritise our…

This is a captivating story of black oats lost and found. Gerald Miles spent 20 years searching for the black oats his grandfather grew. Through a connection with a folk musician, another older farmer was found to be still growing these almost extinct oats. We formed a group called Llafur Ni and embarked on a journey to eat these oats for the first time. Discovering that eating oats wasn’t as simple as we thought, we…

This is an opportunity for anyone attending the conference to gather in regional groups for an informal networking session before the evening’s entertainment. It will be a chance to connect with others in broad geographic areas to share experiences of the conference, find out about relevant networks and events and highlight areas of common regional or local interest. Join colleagues/friends from the North, South West, South East or Midlands in England, or from Scotland or…

The Youth Convergence on Land Justice will bring together young people aged 16-24 from across the UK who have a shared interest in discussing issues and opportunities young people face in the realm of land work, from farming to forestry, activism to nature restoration. In workshop form, the convergence will provide a facilitated space for youth representatives from organisations, movements and unions doing innovative work to share learning. We will discuss the potential of intergenerational…