Reflections from the Oxford Real Farming Conference
Recently I attended the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) (https://orfc.org.uk) for the first time and thought that on my train journey home I would write a reflective piece about my time there. What an inspiring conference and group of people. As a PhD student looking to communicate directly with farmers, this was the perfect platform to meet and hear from key farmers about vital issues facing agriculture today. Further to the educational aspects of the conference, the atmosphere in the evening, such as during the open mic night hosted by the conference on the Thursday night, highlighted the enthusiasm of the delegates. This blog post aims to consolidate my key thoughts surrounding the conference. This is to include my favourite elements, and the key takeaways from the conference session content.
Key Takeaway 1: Intergenerational Farming and Conservation are Crucial to Succeed with Agro-ecological based Targets
Intergenerational farms and projects were a key theme in the sessions that I attended at ORFC. I was interested in learning about intergenerational working as I wanted to hear about individual farmers stories, with the sessions about intergenerational projects including small panels of farmers and key stakeholders. Overall, it was made really clear to the audience how the younger generation can really provide new information to the older generations. Although older generations admitted to slight resistance to change (such as environmental measures) at first, they embraced the change whilst also ensuring that new actions implemented were realistic to the farm.
In the session “Family Farming Decisions: Bringing together old and new thinking” we heard from two family farms about how they have made decisions on their farm as a family. What I really liked about this session was how the younger generation of farmer did the main presentation and allowed family to participate and give input. Overall, this was very heart-warming and nice to see families working together to enact real change in their farming businesses and to secure future business security. The second intergenerational themed session that I went to was about the Penpont project in South Wales (https://www.penpont.com). In this project, there has been input from both local farmers and a national youth group from the charity called ‘Action for Conservation’. The most inspiring aspect of the project design and collaboration aspects was the coproduction of drawn maps of the past, present and future of the land. These used the imagination of the youth group, historical knowledge from local elders, and farmer inputs. I hope that I can use the ideas learned in these sessions to explore the idea of intergenerational knowledge transfer in the context of environmental actions on farms in my research.
Key Takeaway 2: We Need to Think About Food Sovereignty
Before the conference, food sovereignty was a new term to me, although it turned out that the concept was very familiar. Although many definitions were discussed in the session “What does food sovereignty mean in the UK?”, it was clear that to have true food sovereignty within a UK context there needs to be; choice of product, healthy food, and ecologically conscious food for everyone. It also became apparent to me in the session that this is a multi-faceted issue and would require a lot of political reform to achieve it. For me, alongside the issues discussed in that session, it is paramount that to have food sovereignty within the UK we need to ensure that our farmers are paid a fair wage for their product. This was discussed passionately at the “Its time to get fair about farming” lunchtime session. In this session the popular Riverford petition about changing the Grocery Supply Code of Practise (https://getfairaboutfarming.co.uk) was analysed and explained. Talking about this code of practise made it very clear to me that reform within our food system needs to come from supermarket and government levels, to ensure that farmers are paid a fair wage for the product they produce. The elements from both talks for me encompass food sovereignty and I believe that if we had true food sovereignty within the UK, we will have also solved many other societal issues.
Key Takeaway 3: Integrating the Arts into a Conference Encourages Confidence and Creativity in the Delegates
Third and finally, I was really impressed with the presence of the arts within the conference. This is not something that I have encountered at a conference before, but it certainly made the whole experience more exciting and engaging. This includes the festivities of the first evening (folk music and food), followed by the presentation of an apple tree alongside folk music in the opening plenary. Further to this, I attended a poetry and song open mic night on the Thursday evening. It was amazing to see the talent present at the conference and I did not expect this before attending. This was also the first time that I have properly connected with poetry – probably because it was the first time that I had heard a poem about farming! In the closing plenary, it was also very moving to hear the whole room in song and harmony.
Final Reflections
What a great opportunity to meet likeminded people and to engage in conversation relevant to my PhD. This conference seemed to inspire confidence in all the delegates involved whilst giving us all positivity (and a lot to think about) for the year ahead!
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