ORFC 2025

Facilitators: Sofie Elise Quist, Margherita Paola Poto, Laura Vita, Diana Garduño Jiménez 

The Ocean sustains all life but is often absent from our thinking about food and agriculture. This workshop allows participants to foster a deeper connection with the seas and engage in the wonders of ocean literacy through storytelling, games, and reflexive activities. We start with storytelling about (re) connecting with the sea through food. Then participants will be divided into groups to join in immersive activities developed by the Ocean Incubator Network to explore the role of the Ocean in food systems from our different standpoints. The workshop ends with a reflexive walk, and an invitation to implement care for the Ocean in our own spheres of influence.

ORFC2025 Workshop: Learning to Connect with the Ocean

Facilitator: Amy Dakin Harris

Join Amy as she shares gentle movement practices that help us ‘meet’ and nurture exchange with the land that we work with. With the aim of expanding ‘regenerative’ practices into the life of the landworker, Amy has been drawing on her training in somatic movement to devise simple exercises that support us in attuning to presence, for listening and conversing with the landscape of our own bodies, as well as other beings’ bodies (human/more-than-human). There will be invitations to move, witness, and give/receive light touch, with the choice to opt-out or adapt. All bodies and experiences are welcome.

ORFC2025 Workshop Embodiment in the Land: Practising Reciprocity

Speaker: Rose Davis

Chair: Jess Abis

For many small-scale, localised, and regenerative food producers, profitability can feel like an uphill battle. Direct-to-consumer sales offer the best chance for profitability — but how do you get there when marketing feels like another full time job? The Nest, a non-profit creative and marketing incubator for agroecological producers, is here to support the transition to a localised, agroecological food system. In this live session, marketing expert Rose Davis and producers from The Nest will share simple, strategic ways to market your business on a tight budget and limited time.

Join us to discover how marketing can become a powerful tool to support the success of your direct-to-consumer business, and to book a free 30-minute session during our 1:1 Storytelling Surgery.

ORFC2025 How to Sell Your Produce Directly to a Localised Market

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.

ORFC2025 Farmworker Struggles in Britain: Voices from the Frontline

Facilitators: Liba Ravindran, Loa Niumeitolu

This is a workshop for people to reconnect with the land. We begin with honouring the Indigenous people and land we are on. Everyone introduces themselves.  Participants share their stories about how their families and ancestors dealt with challenging and difficult systemic situations in their lives. Participants will share oral and written stories that illustrate actions of anti-oppression and justice that are rooted in their ancestral lines, whether genealogical, cultural or other forms that fought oppression and brought justice. This circle also employs somatic exercises to allow the participants to feel into the power of their ancestors and their experiences.

ORFC2025 Workshop Anti-Oppression Circle: Retracing the Footsteps of Our Ancestors

Facilitators: Vicki Hird, Tammy Smalley, Lucia Monje-Jelfs, Laura Stratford, Julien Etienne, Robert Caudwell

Lowland carbon peat soils are precious — from storing vast amounts of carbon to being a key wildlife, food and hydrological resource. Yet they are severely degraded, leading to soil and nature loss and greenhouse gas emissions. This is partly due to major horticulture, arable and livestock production which needs to change or move elsewhere. This session is led by the Wildlife Trusts, Soil Association, and Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership. A panel of practitioners and experts who work with local growers will initiate a group discussion on key issues, and on how local dialogues, issues of place, and livelihoods matter. Small groups will then work on lowland peat production and solutions to discuss in a final wrap-up.

ORFC2025 WORKSHOP Creating Solutions For Farming On Lowland Peat

Oxford Real Farming Conference