Call for contributions for the 2017 Oxford Real Farming Conference

Oxford Real Farming Conference are looking for new contributors
Oxford Real Farming Conference are looking for new contributors

The Oxford Real Farming Conference are seeking contributions from practitioners working across the food and farming field to organise sessions for the 2017 ORFC.

Born in 2010, the ORFC is an annual gathering which brings together farmers and growers with scientists, economists, activists, lawyers, and anyone else with a keen interest in food sovereignty and agriculture and all that which falls in between the two.

It offers a mix of practical and on-farm advice, showcases new techniques for best practice in agroecological farming, discusses our global food system, including the economic and trade policies that affect British farming and much more.

It was in part conceived as an antidote to the official, Oxford Farming Conference, which for the past 60 years has presented the Establishment view and of late has encouraged farmers to focus on high tech, and trust to the global market.

The ORFC programme is organised into sessions which either fall into over-arching conference themes, or stand independently, but which are relevant to the wider ethos and objectives of the conference.

The 2017 ORFC will maintain its usual three strands of:

Farm Practice: focusing on sound science, on the bottom line and on practical ideas to take away.

New Entrants, New Ideas: reshaping agriculture to make way for the next generation of farmers.

The Big Ideas: that underpin all endeavors but don’t always get talked about.

The ORFC are seeking contributions from practitioners working across the food and farming field to organise sessions for the 2017 ORFC.

As a session host, you will be expected to organise your event, including providing information about your session as well as coordinating speakers/chair-person(s).

Deadline for submissions

Please send your session ideas to Nessie Reid at: nessie@orfc.org.uk by 15 September 2016, with a 800 word description of what your session would involve as well as a list of potential speakers and a chair for the session(s).