The Oxford Farming Conference

The Oxford Farming Conference and partners hosted a full day of live fringes, on Thursday 8 December 2022. You can watch back the session, by visiting our video library. Our thanks go to our Headline Sponsor, Trinity AgTech, and all the Fringes hosts for their support of the fringe programme and OFC 2023, which takes place in Oxford from 4 to 6 January 2023. 

This session is only open to OFC Inspire delegates and will take place at the Examination Schools. If you are an Inspire delegate, you will receive an email, ahead of the conference, with more information.

Hosted in partnership with the Fieldwork Book Club, this session will see Adam Bedford interview authors, Sarah Langford and Bella Bathurst, as they discuss their books and reflections on agriculture. 

This session takes place at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and is included with your OFC ticket. Space is on a first come basis, you do not need to pre-register.

Join us for our Welcome Event hosted by OFC 2023 Chair, Emily Norton with drinks and a light dinner included. This event is not included in your conference ticket but booking is available via the OFC Booking system.

Tickets cost £45 plus VAT and are on a first come basis.

This event will run from 18:30 to 22:00 at Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Kickstart your day at the Oxford University Chapel as Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley (Bishop of Ripon) leads a special service for the Oxford Farming Conference. This event is open to anyone with a ticket for the conference.

Networking and presentations from the UK's Agri-Tech Centres. Includes breakfast. This breakfast session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools.To join and help manage catering, book your complimentary place, using the UK Agri-Tech Centres Eventbrite link found in your member area. Click here to login.

Jason Hafemeister  Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs and the Trade Counsel to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Kimberley Botwright, Head of Sustainable Trade for the World Economic Forum.

Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries) Baroness Kate Rock  - farmer and Member of House of Lords, and Daniel Zeichner - Member of Parliament.

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the Climate Impacts Group at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. World Food Prize winner 2022, recognised for her work assessing climate change's threat to agriculture and food security.

OFC 2023 has a real focus on networking this year, with even more time allocated over lunch and during the breaks, so you can meet as many people as possible. Take the next two hours to grab a bite, catch up with friends and make new connections.

This session will run from 14:00 - 16:30

Dung Beetles for Farmers with Sally-Ann Spence - Entomologist and Farmer, Earth Observations with Jacquie McGlade, Agroforestry, is it just for hipsters who wear sandals? with Abi Reader - Farmer and NFU Cymru Deputy President, and Vertical Farming with Kate Hofman.

Sir Tim Smit, Executive Vice-Chair and Co-founder of the Eden Project

It's the end of the first full day of conference! Lots to consider and to digest. So why not join Map of Ag for a cup of tea/coffee and a slice of cake and hear from one of the UK's leading farm entrepreneurs, Charles Buckley, who will give a short talk and take questions. Charles is a farmer, developer and asset manager, founder and partner of Belport Limited and partner of Culworth Grounds Farm Partnership. He established Belport in 2016 with Alistair Emery to establish a creative team of entrepreneurial property professionals and asset managers with over £300 million of assets under management, most notably the Strutt and Parker Farms Ltd portfolio. Specialising in the agricultural and real estate sectors, its founders have extensive farming experience and a proven track record investing in and managing farms and estates. Charles will discuss his approach to farming and how his business interests are adapting to the economic and environmental landscape.  We are delighted to bring Charles exclusively to this session and look forward to you joining us to learn, unwind, and network with your peers...

This session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools.To join and help manage catering, book your complimentary place, using the Map of Ag registration link found in your member area. Click here to login.

Join Trinity Natural Capital Group at Oxford Farming Conference 2023 for an interactive and unique session looking at decision-making and implementation. To farm a new future, we cannot do what we have always done.During this networking event, you will be guided by expert speakers to explore your own mindset. Discover how our individual mindsets impact our decision making and affect the implementation of new management practices. Explore how we can change our own mindsets and discover tools to change the mindsets of others. This session will help us find out more about ourselves, the people around us, and how we can forge better connections to work collaboratively to farm a new future. Drinks and canapés provided.

This lunchtime panel session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools.To join and help manage catering, book your complimentary place, using the Trinity Natural Capital Group registration link found in your member area. Click here to login.

This event is only open to Scholars.

This breakfast session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools. To join and help manage catering, you may be required to book with the host partner, CAAV, using their own Eventbrite link. More information will follow late-November 2022.

The Prince’s Countryside Fund (PCF) and McDonalds UK & Ireland invite you to breakfast for the launch of our new practical guide which is supporting small family farms reduce their costs whilst maintaining productivity: The Great Grazing Guide. Farmers’ profits are under intense pressure: fertiliser and feed costs are rapidly rising at the same time uncertainty surrounds farm support payments. Whilst artificial fertiliser and concentrate feed have been a useful way to boost productivity, this new guide will look at other approaches which could reduce businesses reliance of them saving time and money, and with environmental benefits too. It will outline short-medium term ways of reducing their use, such as more efficient use of organic matter, and introduce ideas from regenerative agriculture such as the use of herbal leys, grazing and livestock management, and the benefits of improved soil health and structure. Hear from Keith Halstead and Allan Wilkinson (The Prince’s Countryside Fund) and Nina Pritchard (McDonald’s UK & Ireland) and enjoy a selection of breakfast rolls.

This publication following the success of our recent A-Zero: A farmer’s guide to breaking free from environmental jargon

This session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools.To join and help manage catering, book your complimentary place, using the BASF Eventbrite link found in your member area. Click here to login.

Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School, including the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food.

Linda France won Simon Armitage's Laurel Prize for the best collection of nature and environmental poetry published in 2022.

Samantha Kinghorn MBE, Double Paralympic Medallist

The School of Sustainable Food and Farming at Harper Adams University will be hosting a session looking at both the challenges and the solutions of farming for a more sustainable future. The School; supported by its steering partners Morrisons, McDonalds UK & Ireland and National Farmers Union aims to Educate, Inspire and Empower current and future farmers to achieve net zero within a sustainable farming and food system. The School has recently run a ‘Journey to NetZero’ challenge competition supported and sponsored by Bradford Estates, Harper Adams University, McDonalds UK & Ireland, Morrisons, National Farmers Union, Trinity AgTech and Trinity Global Pioneers. The competition has encouraged UK farmers to apply for a share of a prize pot which can be used to support the development or implementation of a system, process or processes which will have a positive and measurable impact on how winners can farm in a sustainable way.

As part of the session ‘Farming for a Sustainable Future’ we will announce the winners of the competition and share details of the journeys they will be going on to implement those sustainable processes and practices into their farming systems. As well as announcing our competition winners we will also have a number of topical talks and case studies all focused around the journey to net zero and supporting the sector to farm in a more sustainable way working towards a better, more secure future for farming.

This lunchtime panel session is open to any delegate who has purchased a ticket to attend OFC and will take place at the Oxford Examination Schools.To join and help manage catering, book your complimentary place, using The School of Sustainable Food and Farming  Eventbrite link found in your member area. Click here to login.