Reflections from Oxford Real Farming Conference 2025

This year, Sustain hosted the Policy Room in the Cheng Building’s Digital Hub. We brought together voices from the sector, on topics ranging from the future of government funding for Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs), to ensuring a just transition for livestock farmers. Recordings of livestreamed events will be available later this year on the ORFC website.

New faces, old friends

ORFC can be overwhelming, especially for those from underrepresented backgrounds. To address this, Sustain, in partnership with Roots to Work, Emergent Generation, and Soil Association, created “Food and Farming Futures,” an informal networking space for newcomers to connect with established players across careers, policy, farming, and land justice. The lively event at Cheng Café, attended by 130+, featured free drinks from Vintage Roots and snacks from Hodmedod’s. We even got a shoutout in the closing plenary, when Rachel Phillips of the Apricot Centre said it was one of her conference highlights, emphasizing the importance of diverse, inclusive spaces.

Crossing urban-rural divides

LGBTQIA2S+ activists came together for Vera Zakharov’s “Growing the Rainbow” session, to discuss issues like urban queer communities feeling disconnected from the land and the isolation faced by LGBTQ+ farmers and migrant workers. By welcoming diverse, creative minds into farming, we can address the rural/urban divide as well as the sector's skills shortage. Out on the Land’s collaboration with Land in our Names, "Cultivating Justice," showcased the importance of allyship across movements for marginalized groups, including Black, people of colour, women, and people with disabilities.

Radical honesty

How can we create an equitable, sustainable food system? Roshni Shah (Roots to Work) joined Dawn Dublin from Joyful Roots and Nicola Scott from Stir to Action, for a conversation on “Radical Honesty” about racial justice in the food system. The panel reflected on the progress since COVID-19 and the BLM movement. The UK race riots have reinforced the need for a systematic anti-racist approach, which Sustain’s pilot anti-racism programme aims to foster. Dawn’s message to funders: "Just get out of the way." Communities know what they need and should be trusted to take action without restrictive reporting requirements. Co-developing initiatives and ensuring representation at all levels, including boards, is crucial.

The future of farming

In one of the conference’s most crowded sessions, Jonathan Baker (DEFRA’s Director for the Farming and Countryside Programme) joined us in the Policy Room to reaffirm a commitment to monitoring the environmental impact of Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, but raised concerns over potential cuts to payments for educational visits under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). 

Money matters

Funding was a question on everyone’s lips. This question was addressed by a panel on “How do we actually fund the agroecological transition?”. Bold initiatives like a National Food Service and Basic Income for Farmers were proposed. A central takeaway was that the funding for a just transition already exists within the food system, but it requires redirection towards effective policies, with ELM needing more radical measures like better land access, limiting corporate dominance, and supporting profitable agroecological models.

A just transition

Farmers are often seen as the perpetrators of environmental destruction, when many of them are in fact struggling to make ends meet. Intensification is sometimes seen as the answer to a food system that values cheap food. During the conference, the government announced plans to encourage more intensive livestock farming in the UK. The news followed promises in December to ‘face down’ communities trying to resist these units. On a timely panel about just and equitable transitions out of these intensive systems for farmers and landworkers, we heard about the need for stand up against worker exploitation from Jake Richardson, how principles of justice can be incorporated into Rewilding from Lidia Cabral, and the importance of working collaboratively with factory farming communities from Laura Stratford.

“Food resilience” vs “food security”

“Food security” is often used to justify intensive farming, but such systems are vulnerable to shocks like disease, climate change, and supply chain disruptions, such as the war in Ukraine. In conversation with Sarah Williams from Sustain, Tim Lang argues for focusing on “food resilience” instead. A resilient food system bounces back quickly from shocks, shifting away from fragile global supply chains toward stronger local networks. Tim called for greater diversity in how we produce and distribute food, drawing on local solutions like box schemes and peri-urban farming, which will help communities navigate future crises. Policymakers must support these systems by enhancing procurement, investing in infrastructure, and addressing the gap between food prices and income.

Better food for all

How can we drive the agroecological transition and create greater food resilience at a grassroots level? These questions were explored in a workshop to shape Sustain’s Local Food Growth Plan, which will be published in March. Participants spoke about the growing importance of local food systems, emphasizing the need for stronger relationships with farmers and smaller enterprises to increase their market share and diversify the food system, with examples like Pipers Farm offering inspiration.

Affordability often dictates access to food. Speakers on the "Organic: The preserve of the privileged?" panel explored how to make agroecological food, particularly organic, more accessible to all. It highlighted initiatives like the Soil Association's "Organic for All" and Bridging the Gap's Planet Card, which have shown strong interest in organic food from low-income groups. We now need government action to stimulate supply through public sector procurement, in the context of growing demand for climate and nature-friendly food. If you want to find out more, watch Bridging the Gap’s new film about making sustainable food more accessible to all, which was launched at the session.

“So many reasons for hope”

The poet Dizraeli brought the conference to a close with a poem, with the powerful message “globalise hope”. Reflecting on the two days of the conference, Dizraeli felt optimistic, saying he had never had “so many reasons” to hope. Ruchi Tripathi expressed gratitude for the “pragmatism and resistance” among conference-goers. One farmer remarked that it felt like “going to the future”.

ORFC has come a long way. At the first conference in 2010, 100 people – including farmers, activists, and scientists - gathered to ask important questions about the kind of farming we really need. 15 years later, ORFC welcomed 3,500 people through its doors. The alternative farming conference has become its own entity, similar to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner and Director General of DEFRA Emily Miles joined the organisers and leading figures for a conference lunch, attended by our own Chief Executive, Kath Dalmeny. The presence of ministers and DEFRA not just at this event, but in other panels and workshops at the conference, suggested that the agroecological movement is slowly but surely becoming mainstream. 

Touching down from ORFC, returning from “the future” to the present, we can now look around us and see that so many people are willing to bring that future into being. It is now up to us to keep going, to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.