OXFORD REAL FARMING CONFERENCE 2025: FARMING IS EVERYWHERE

This year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference reminded us that if you want to understand – and change – the contemporary world, you have to understand farming.

Across talks on social issues from misinformation to neurodiversity, the conference rejected the idea that farming only affects farmers. Instead, it became a lens through which to look at our daily lives.

Speakers emphasised that access to good, fresh food has never been more important – but this must be a problem approached from all areas of policy. It’s estimated by the FFCC, for example, that our current food system in the UK costs us £268 billion every year.

The government needs to enact change, fast. Putting funding into food education, connecting people to those who grow their food, and focusing on building policy that supports nature friendly farming will create positive system change that saves billions.

CO-OPERATION IS CRUCIAL

If change is to happen, farmers have to work together. This year’s conference represented the first ever joint event between the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference, which urged for more cross-aisle co-operation on large-scale issues like climate change.

Growers at the conference shared their successes and struggles in different ways that other emerging and existing growers can take strength and inspiration to persevere. The major takeaway is that what works for one person may not work for another, but the vision can still be the same. Our farms need to be diverse, but so do our approaches to the people, places and situations that surround them.

Working together, however, goes even further. The west needs to accept that it can learn real lessons from the global south. In the words of Sri Lankan activist Anuka De Silva at Re-Rooting Agroecology as a Social Movement, “Globalised struggle” and “globalised hope” go hand in hand.

THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW

Ultimately, this year’s ORFC recognised that to achieve the results we want for the planet and the food system we have to do more than talk. We have to act.

This year, the conference saw more practical workshops on top of panel discussions – from an advice session on “Scaling Up the Market Garden” to Natoora’s own workshop on making links between farms and kitchens.