Food and farming organisations are invited to submit workshop ideas when booking places for the Oxford Real Farming conference, which will be held on January 3 and 4 next year. The organisers will take suggestions for sessions until December 3, from which three dozen fringe meetings will be scheduled.
The theme of the 2013 conference is New Generation, New Ideas and topics on the agenda for the event include supporting new entrants; cutting out intermediaries in the supply chain through the use of community-owned enterprises from farms to distribution systems; how the law can be used to grant access to land and smallholdings.
The organisers of the Oxford Real Farming Conference are convinced that the Earth’s natural resources can easily provide a good, healthy diet for everyone living on the planet today, as well as everyone likely to be living on it 50 years from now or indeed forever. “All it will take is an agriculture based on principles of sound biology rather than economic dogma,” argues Campaign for Real Farming founder Colin Tudge.
The importance of local food networks has been a constant element on the Real Farming agenda and delegates are being asked to share their ideas to re-invigorate sustainable farming and realign the food supply chain. Organisations already confirmed include: Agroecology Alliance; Plunkett Foundation; Permaculture Association; Pasture-Fed Livestock Association; UK Food Group and Sovereignty UK.
