It’s almost that time of year again – the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) is upon us! So just before we all head off for our mid-winter breaks, we thought we’d share some of what the LWA will be bringing to this year’s conference, running on 9th and 10th January 2025, to help those of you attending to get your session plan well prepared ahead of time! 

   At ORFC 2024, there are over a hundred incredible sessions planned across nine venues. These will bring speakers from around the world together with the larger ORFC community to discuss issues around food and farming policy, land justice, the financialisation of nature, community wellbeing, and the critical role farming plays in solving our ecological crises. Delegates will be able to choose from panels, keynotes and workshops that engage with the crucial challenges affecting our food and farming system right now.

Once again LWA have coordinated a programme of panel talks, workshops and drop-in sessions which will take place over the two days of the conference. For this year’s programme, we have decided to explore what it means to be, and build, a social movement for agroecology and food sovereignty – with sessions on reaffirming agroecology as a social movement, forging alliances with unionised workers in the food system, growing the local food sector, and building grassroots solidarity with migrant landworkers.

We’ve listed our programme of sessions below, followed by a selection of other sessions we’d recommend you check out!

LWA Programme

1. Re-rooting Agroecology as a Social Movement

Thursday 9th January, 11am — 12.30pm

Old Library, Oxford Town Hall

Speakers: Rebecca Laughton, Edwin Brooks, Michel Pimbert, Anuka De Silva

Chair: Jo Kamal

The use of agroecology as an ‘umbrella term’ for sustainable farming is leaving it vulnerable to cooption. As the term appears more and more in government policy, public discourse and even the PR of agrifood giants, there is a growing urgency to understand and defend agroecology as a social movement with strong political and social roots. This panel discussion will hear from farmers, activists and academics who are building a social movement for agroecology, to discuss the risks of cooption and to explore what must be done to re-affirm agroecology as a truly grassroots and liberatory project for transforming our food and land-use systems. 

3. Workshop: Growing the Local Food Sector – What Next?

Thursday 9th January, 2pm — 3.30pm 

The Magic Common Room, Story Museum

Facilitator: Peter Samsom

The Local Food Growth Plan is reaching its final stages following interviews, workshops and research. The plan, by LWA, Sustain, Pasture for Life, SFT, Better Food Traders and FFCC, aims to both attract investment and stimulate activity, creating substantial growth in the local food sector. In this workshop following quick-fire presentations, participants will review areas for action on the themes of infrastructure, citizen demand, the public plate, collaboration, and policy, looking at opportunities, priorities and how they could be involved. This is a chance to shape the final stage of the plan and help translate it into action.

4. Farmworker Struggles in Britain: Voices from the Frontline

Thursday 9th January 2023, 2pm — 3.30pm

The Link Room

Speakers: Catherine McAndrew, Valeria Ragni

Chair: Tara Wight

The Seasonal Worker Scheme governs the arrival of up to 47,000 migrant farm workers to the UK each year. As part of this scheme, workers are tied to their recruiter and must pay up front for visas and flights. These features are a major driver of debt bondage and forced labour. In this session, we will be joined by the Landworkers’ Alliance, the Worker Support Centre, and former farm workers to explore the harsh reality of working in the UK’s horticultural supply chains and to discuss how to hold the supermarkets profiting from this situation to account.

5. Workshop: Cultivating Long-Term Solidarity With Farmers in Palestine

Thursday 9th January, 4pm — 5.30pm

The Magic Common Room, Story Museum

Facilitators: Edwin Brooks, Leonie Nimmo, Sara Moon, Samson Hart

Join this action-oriented workshop to explore how members of the UK agroecology movement can cultivate long-term solidarity with farmers and food producers in Palestine who face ongoing violence, murder, aggression and confiscation of their lands at the hands of Israeli occupying forces; a degree of devastation which UN human rights experts have amounted to a genocide. The workshop will begin with pre-recorded messages from farmers bringing in the 2024 olive harvest, followed by an introduction to the LWA Palestine Solidarity Twinning Project (a collaboration with the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Workers’ Committees), and a facilitated discussion to explore what we can do on a personal, farm, and movement-wide level to offer meaningful solidarity and support to land-based communities in Palestine.

⭐ Smash Imperialism! For a New Trade Framework Based on Solidarity

Friday 10th January 2023, 9am-10.30am

Old Library, Oxford Town Hall

Speakers: Anuka De Silva, Edu H. Nualart, Carson Kiburo

Chair: Sophia Doyle 

How does imperialism affect our food systems? How is all this directly linked with European public policies and free trade agreements? How does imperialism affect rural and indigenous youth? What can we do to change the neo-colonial domination of the north towards the south? How do we fight and how do we resist it? Young members from La Via Campesina and the International Indian Treaty will be addressing the intersection between imperialism and agroindustry, and presenting the alternatives that the food sovereignty movement is advocating.

⭐ Roots of Resistance: Farming in Palestine

Thursday 9th January 2023, 11am-12.30pm

The Woodshed, Story Museum

Speakers: Lina Isma’il, George McAllister, Cathi Pawson

Chair: Muna Dajani

Under military occupation, Palestinian farmers face intensifying and catastrophic challenges across the territory. The Israeli military assault has weaponised hunger, systematically targeted food and water infrastructure, destroyed farmland and contaminated soils in Gaza. In the West Bank, land confiscations, settler attacks and restrictions on movement and trade have all accelerated at an unprecedented rate. This session discusses Palestine’s embattled food and farming heritage, with food sovereignty activist Lina Isma’il from the West Bank, George McAllister who works on action-research in Gaza, Cathi Pawson, co-founder of Zaytoun, and chaired by Palestinian scholar-activist Muna Dajani. The panel ends by asking, what does radical solidarity look like from within the food sovereignty movement.

What else will the LWA be up to at ORFC?

As well as our sessions in the LWA room at ORFC, there will be a strong LWA representation across the conference, with members and staff team contributing to sessions on a range of topics from supporting new entrants to crofting and agrarian reform.

There’ll also be a Youth Networking lunchtime session from 1pm – 1.45pm on the Thursday in St Columba’s Church which is being co-hosted by LWA Youth FLAME, and LWA’s Out On The Land (OOTL) are hosting an LGBTQ+ Evening Social on the Thursday evening 8pm – 9.30pm in the Magic Common Room.

In-person tickets for this year’s ORFC are all SOLD OUT, but several of the sessions are being streamed online. Check out the online programme here.

If you’re attending in-person, don’t forget to come and say hello at our stall in the Old Library where we’ll have a selection of publications and merchandise for sale – as well as plenty of friendly LWA faces to chat with! And if you’re on social media please don’t forget to tag us in your posts @landworkersalliance.

ORFC is a unique opportunity to meet , connect and build our movement, and a rare moment when leaders in the field of agroecology, regenerative agriculture, community food and farming and food sovereignty are in one place sharing their knowledge and experiences.

See you in Oxford!