The Oxford Real Farming Conference 2015 (ORFC15) took place in January. Presentations from the event are now available as videos on YouTube: Oxford Real Farming Conference 2015 videos
food
Oxford Real Farming Conference 2015
For the first time the whole conference will be held under one roof (at Oxford Town Hall), with key debates on the dairy industry, flooding, soil fertility and TTIP. Speakers at this year’s conference include Robert Craig (Farmers’ Weekly Dairy Farmer of the Year and Nuffield Scholar), Dr. Elaine Ingham, (internationally acclaimed authority on the life of the soil), Neil Darwent (BBC Farmer of the Year), Prof. Mark Eisler (Chair of Global Animal Health, Bristol University), Carrie Balkcom (Exec Sec of the American Grassfed Association) and Daniela Howell (CEO of the Savory Institute) among many others.
This year’s practical stream, Farming Outside the Box, has been organized by John Turner (farmer and co-founder of the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association) and Dr. John Meadley (agricultural scientist and chair of the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association). The focus of these sessions is on farmers taking greater control over their suppliers and markets, making better use of their farm’s natural resources and addressing the resistance to chemicals that nature is developing.
See programme and book tickets
This event is not organised by WDM. We’re mentioning on our website because it promises to have something for everyone interested in farming, growing and food. Organisations such as the Land Workers Alliance and the Soil Association will have a presence at this event.
Disco Soup
Disco Soup is a fun food-sharing event organised by Abundance Oxford. Head to Bonn Square on Saturday 1st November for free food and live music. So much edible food is regularly thrown away; Abundance Oxford aims to show just how much by rescuing some of this food and giving it away for free. (And it will be tasty!) Join in the chopping, peeling and cooking (and of course eat the end results!) between noon and 5pm. This event is not organised by Oxford WDM.
Carving up Africa at Oxford Folk Festival
Africa was up for grabs in Oxford WDM’s latest stunt. Our activists arrived at Oxford Folk Festival with an elaborate cake in the shape of the continent and invited passers-by to compete for a slice.
It was part of the usual Folk Festival fun and games, but with a serious message: Africa is being carved up by large corporations with the connivance of the UK government. Initiatives such as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition sound good on the surface, but the real aim behind them is to make Africa’s resources more accessible for corporate profit. The claim is that the New Alliance will reduce hunger in Africa, but corporations such as Diageo, Monsanto and Unilever are using it to make a grab for Africa’s land, labour and natural resources.
We don’t think it’s acceptable that our own government supports this corporate takeover of African food. So we were asking passers-by to sign postcards to the Secretary of State for International Development, calling on her to withdraw UK support from the New Alliance. If you missed us on Saturday, you can write to her via our website.
High-resolution photos of the day are available on request.
Launch of WDM food campaign
The official launch of the WDM food campaign will take place on Wednesday 30th April at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1r 4RL. The guest speaker will be Janet Maro of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania, who will speak about sustainable farming methods and resistance to the corporate takeover of agriculture.
Africa is so tasty!
Yum, Africa is so tasty! Executives from corporations such as Diageo and Monsanto and celebrated the corporate carve-up of Africa with a cake…or did they? OK, we admit it, those people in suits were actually WDM activists. We were trying to highlight the way that the UK government’s Department for International Development is using aid money to help multinational corporations get a piece of Africa. The two-minute video went viral and it’s worth watching if you haven’t already seen it!
Video: Corporations celebrate new scramble for Africa
More info on our Africa campaign at www.wdm.org.uk/food
