Oxford REal farming Conference

The first week in January, most years, means a trip down to the ‘Oxford Real Farming Conference’ (ORFC), which was set up in 2010 as an alternative to the 90-year-old ‘Oxford Farming Conference’ (OFC). Having been to both, they are completely different: business suits vs. woolly jumpers, hugs vs. handshakes. Both are hugely insightful, exhausting and great fun.

ORFC welcomes 1,800 delegates, many sessions and workshops dotted around Oxford Town Hall, subjects are wide ranging from resilient vineyards to migrating insects. Frantically charging between sessions keeps you fresh.

Highlights

My highlights included a session run by Sheila Dillon looking at the Soil to Pub concept, getting chefs onto farms, humanising supply chains and re-establishing these vital connections. Speaker Geetie Singh-Watson brought this to life with many great tales, including the hilarity of a farmer walking through a busy London restaurant with a whole pig over his shoulder.

‘Thinking like a fish’, a fantastic panel including a farmer, a politician, environmentalist and a scientist looking at solutions for Lough Neagh’s blue-green algae crisis. Mark Horton from Ballinderry Rivers Trust, a champion for community-led conservation spoke about the 5 year project in detail, bringing all parties to the table and the value of actually getting in the river to see what’s happening at fish level.

Like many a good conference, it’s the random conversations you have, maybe waiting for the loo, the coffee queue, or the chat at the bar with Jude, a pig farmer from Iowa who makes the trip every year. The ‘glyhospate debate’, a session which I missed, was being hotly debated in the pub by a couple of dairy farmers, a supermarket buyer, an ecologist and an arable farmer! Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth was another one which blew folks' minds, definitely worth a catch-up on YouTube when they get posted online.

So in summary - if you get the chance to go to Oxford next year - GO.

Nic Renison