Oxford Real Farming Conference 2023

Every January the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) connects people in the UK and around the globe who want to transform our food and farming system.

ORFC attracts farmers, growers, activists, policymakers and researchers from around the world who are interested in transforming our food system. In 2021 and 2022, the conference went entirely online, but the physical gathering has traditionally been in Oxford and was set up as an alternative to the Oxford Farming Conference, which happens at the same time.

ORFC has always been the place to share progressive ideas. Subjects include agroecology, regenerative agriculture, organic farming and indigenous food and farming systems. The broad programme delves deep into farming practices and techniques as well as addressing the bigger questions relating to our food and farming system.

Crucially, it has always been the participants who provide the ORFC programme. The sessions reflect their diversity, ranging from the intricacies of soil microbiology to new kinds of marketing; setting up a micro-dairy to the value of introducing mob grazing and agroforestry to the farm; from the joys and tribulations of crofting to the kind of economic structure we need to support the kind of farming we need. It is this diversity of participants and interests that keeps ORFC alive and growing.

Patrick Holden will join for a panel discussion on Friday 6th January in the main hall at Oxford Town Hall. Find more details of this panel below, or on the ORFC website.

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Programme

  • ORFC 23

    6th January

14:00 – 15:30

Feeding Britain from the Ground Up: Why we should align our future diets with regenerative farming systems

Chaired by the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, Dan Saladino, Patrick Holden will join in discussion with other speakers to explore the need to speed up the transition to more resilient and regenerative food and farming systems.

The panel will also focus on the need to reduce public confusion about healthy and sustainable diets, and how we can align what we eat with the output of genuinely sustainable farming systems, and explore what’s needed to enable this change – including policy and market levers, as well as a powerful public engagement campaign to inspire and empower citizens to take action.

This discussion will also be live-streamed, and available to watch on playback.

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