{"id":3484904,"date":"2021-01-27T11:48:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T11:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3484904"},"modified":"2021-01-27T11:48:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T11:48:39","slug":"reflecting-on-orfc-2021-blinking-into-the-light-galvanising-food-movements-in-troubling-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2021-01-27\/reflecting-on-orfc-2021-blinking-into-the-light-galvanising-food-movements-in-troubling-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on ORFC 2021: Blinking into the Light \u2013 Galvanising Food Movements in Troubling Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few of us would say that we\u2019re not happy to see the back of 2020. For one thing, it\u2019s fundamentally changed how we live and work, often for the worse. We\u2019ve all missed the creativity that emerges from human connection, and many of us are now bound to long hours in front of screens, zooming between one meeting and the next. So you can imagine our reaction when we learned that this year\u2019s UK annual agroecology get-together, the\u00a0<\/a>Oxford REAL Farming Conference<\/a>\u00a0(ORFC 2021), usually a joyous 2-day affair in the Oxford Town Hall now in its 11th<\/sup>\u00a0year, was going online \u2026 for seven days.<\/p>\n

It was also going international, which we admit to having had some reservations about \u2013 not least due to concerns about projecting agroecology onto the rest of the world from \u2018the belly of the beast\u2019 (also the\u00a0title of one of our own panel discussions<\/a>). Yet, throughout the conference, many of the voices that were lifted up were from the \u2018Global South\u2019. In fact, participation was free for all presenters and delegates outside of the industrialised \u2018North\u2019, and translation channels were available in French, Spanish and Chinese.<\/p>\n

Due to the self-selected topics of session proposers themselves, it was perhaps unsurprising that there was a strong focus on critiquing the dominant discourse of elite and corporate economic and political forces and their allies (largely in the Global North) that have long colonised our food systems. Over the 7-day programme, with over 5000 delegates, ORFC 2021 drew on its live tradition, getting underway with keynotes from important thinkers and activists, interspersed with musical folk traditions from the British Isles, Aotearoa and Japan to carry us through the week. The new online format provided an opportunity for over 500 speakers \u2013 combinations of farmers, foresters and fishers, women and youths, and activists and researchers \u2013 from 78 countries across 18 time zones \u2013 to present and share their work and passion for food systems transformation on many different levels. And the technology worked!<\/p>\n

Themes and sessions that resonated with us at ORFC 2021<\/h3>\n

With over 150 presentations and workshops, we got to learn more about how farmers are engaging with regenerative farming practices and on-farm innovations to protect biodiversity above and below ground; hear about challenges to global food and farming represented by big ag and its corporate allies; explore the use of cosmologies and traditional practices that connect us to nature, our authentic selves and to one another; engage with the ongoing challenges of those fighting for access to land as the basis for food and climate justice; and how to build movements for equity and diversity through practice and activism, including sessions on racial justice, gender and feminism.<\/p>\n

Many sessions reflected on the very real challenges faced by farming communities in the UK, such as the ever-present BREXIT and its impacts on food and farming policy and practice, and across the world due to the ratcheting climate and biodiversity crises, COVID-19 and the destruction of complex ecosystems by industrial monocultures. On the origins of pandemics past and present, and what we might reasonably expect with a continuation of business as usual, epidemiologist and agroecology activist\u00a0Rob Wallace was in compelling conversation with Tammi Jonas<\/a>, President of the\u00a0Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance<\/a>, about whether agriculture can stop COVID-21, 22, or 23; and the Guardian\u2019s environment editor John Vidal talked to researcher-practitioner John Letts on \u2018Why we need biodiversity<\/a>\u2019, especially in arable systems.<\/p>\n

After years of attempting to get something on cosmologies into ORFC, we were pleased to see this important topic come of age this year \u2013 with many Peoples engaged with nature for their spiritual wellbeing, health and livelihoods sharing their practices in both presentations and workshops. As well as considering \u2018How Cosmology Guides Farmers of Shashe Community in Zimbabwe<\/a>\u2019, it was particularly interesting, in Julia Wright\u2019s session on \u2018Subtle Agroecologies: Farming with the Hidden Half of Nature<\/a>\u2019, to see participants including commercial farmers and agronomists literally meditating on nature \u2013 a conference first?<\/p>\n

With the many agroecological success stories shared from across the globe, so we must continue to ask the question of why this is not being supported beyond niche projects that are often difficult to quantify \u2013 and how might this be done. Here our own Nina Moeller and Colin Anderson presented deficits in\u00a0Financing Agroecology<\/a>\u00a0from public funds, and Daniel Moss at the AgroEcology Fund looked at \u2018Moving Money into Agroecology<\/a>\u2019 \u2013 to explore solutions for directing private funds into agroecology. Of course, it\u2019s impossible to consider why these deficits exist without discussing the underlying power and origins of international capital.<\/p>\n

This brings us to another powerful theme that echoed across the conference \u2013 the deeply-rooted impact of colonialism and the ongoing colonisation of the food system. To name but a few, Raj Patel & Rupa Mayra\u2019s talked \u2018Against Philanthropy<\/a>\u2019, and our very own Patrick Mulvany with Saurabh Arora, Neth Da\u00f1o from etcGroup and the incredibly powerful Ruchi Shroff (who stepped in for Vandana Shiva at short notice) discussed \u2018The Exporting of Technofixes \u2013 Colonialism and Resistance<\/a>\u2019. The theme continued with further sessions including LVC\u2019s on \u2018Food Justice Not Food Aid<\/a>\u2019 and Mariam Mayet, Vandana Shiva and Tim Wise\u2019s impassioned session on\u00a0 \u2018Neo-colonial Ecologies and Economies<\/a>, Smallholders and Multiple Shocks in Africa\u2019. These sessions, in particular, gathered powerful messages from all corners of the world which should galvanise people in the UK to challenge the dominant trends in production, aid, trade and technology.<\/p>\n

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Despite the many challenges we face, many sessions focused on creating positive change by learning from incremental actions and successes, such as Nourish Scotland\u2019s \u2018Tracing Food Systems Transformations Along Desire Lines<\/a>\u2019. These provide inspiration for us, as a movement, to go beyond fear \u2013 and passive hope \u2013 by actively engaging with and co-constructing the future we seek. Here, Rob Hopkins\u2019 session entitled \u2018From What If, to What Next<\/a>\u2019 called on our creative imaginations to re-imagine and re-story the future, and was followed by a workshop on \u2018How to Build a Time Machine<\/a>\u2019. This resonated through into the final session, with Nnimmo Bassey and Naomi Klein who presented their animation \u2018Message from the Future II: Years of Repair<\/a>\u2019 and reminded us that galvanising interconnected movements in these troubling times requires plenty of hard work and vision.<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/h3>\n

If we\u2019ve learned nothing else over the past 12-months, or indeed from this ORFC 2021 gathering, it\u2019s that no two COVID-19 experiences are the same. Just as it has been a disconnector, it has also been a disrupter \u2013 encouraging many to look at and value our natural, spiritual and social worlds through new eyes. And just as industrial food chains were disrupted, so we also learned that many producers have been creating new spaces that are more responsive to the kind of local food systems people increasingly want to support. And while these past 12-months have proved immensely challenging for social organisation to push back against a post-nature vision of the future currently gaining pace, through ORFC 2021 we experienced new opportunities for alliance and solidarity building around agroecology and food sovereignty to galvanise the global food movement as we enter this new year. And so, as we emerge blinking into the light, from behind our lockdown screens, it is with an invigorated vision of the world we\u2019re collectively striving to build. We have much to do, but grounds to be positive.<\/p>\n

If you missed any of this \u2013 not to worry. All ORFC 2021\u00a0workshops are already available<\/a>\u00a0on the ORFC YouTube Channel, and panel sessions will be freely available at the end of January. One question asked by many delegates, was what to do next year? Do we return, if at all possible, to the Oxford Town Hall which, while restricted to around 1000 delegates, provides practitioners, activists and researchers (mainly from the UK) with a valuable opportunity to meet and share face-to-face; or to remain online and inclusive of global voices in agroecology to continue building out?\u00a0 Perhaps there\u2019s a hybrid model, or an opportunity to alternate each year?\u00a0 If you have a view \u2013 visit\u00a0ORFC\u2019s survey<\/a>\u00a0and let them know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so, as we emerge blinking into the light, from behind our lockdown screens, it is with an invigorated vision of the world we\u2019re collectively striving to build. We have much to do, but grounds to be positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3484907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213522,213526,79718,79719,213531],"tags":[108093,213715,94348],"class_list":["post-3484904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration","category-act-inspiration-featured","category-environment","category-foodwater","category-food-water-featured","tag-agroecology","tag-building-resilient-food-and-farming-systems","tag-foodsovereignty"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3484904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3484907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3484904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3484904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3484904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}