Over 500 speakers from across the world will gather to speak online and in-person in Oxford next week as one of the UK’s biggest gatherings for the sustainable food and farming community kicks off.
Tickets to watch the sessions online are still available, where speakers include legendary food and farming activist Vandana Shiva, alongside leading academics, campaigners and activists in market gardening, farming, pesticides, biodiversity, local economies and food politics.
Highlights will include professor of biology and bee ecology specialist Dave Goulson, in a session on averting the insect apocalypse; the dirty truth about pesticides with author and food systems expert Anna Lappé and how growing nuts on farms can help restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change with founder of organic veg box company Riverford, Guy Singh-Watson.
Farming under fire in Palestine; what next for gene editing in the UK; and lessons in surviving drought from indigenous communities are among other the unique sessions on the wide-ranging programme.
Francesca Price, ORFC Director, said: “We’ve weaved together a programme that covers the vast array of topics the movement is interested in; from farm practice to food policy, from land-use to climate activism, from justice issues to spiritual ecology.”
Appealing to both farmers and new community food growers, or just those interested in connecting with the good food movement, are sessions including how small farms can boost community development, mapping local food economies, and how farmers’ markets can connect the rural and urban.
Other high-profile names including food politics expert Marion Nestle, biologist Merlin Sheldrake and conservationist Chris Packham also appear on the programme.
Jyoti Fernandes, from conference co-organiser The Landworkers’ Alliance, said: “ORFC is an opportunity for all those working to transform our food and farming systems here in the UK and across the globe to make meaningful and lasting connections, to share ideas and experiences, to educate, inspire and to mobilise.
“We live in a time of intersecting crises, and the need to come together in person to build momentum has arguably never been greater.”
Tickets to watch the conference online (from £10) are available now. In-person tickets are sold out.
To view the full programme, click here.
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