Oxford Farming Conference 2022, January 5th – 7th
This year was my first time attending the OFC, albeit digitally! The conference was due to meet in person but due to changing restrictions had to go online at short notice and what a good job they did of managing the changeover!
The Road to Resilience was this years theme, Oxford Farming Conference brought together a varied showcase of industry speakers and politicians to address how the agricultural sector is going to sustainably adapt to changing markets and climate.
Science and technological developments, addressing how the industry has had to pivot and change to meet the challenges of the pandemic and global cooperation were all explored. Climate and carbon were prominent with debates and discussions about how farming can help the UK government reach it’s net zero goals
The human and personal side to farming wasn’t forgotten either, particularly the Inspiring Farmers Simon Best, Kate Rowell, Zanna Joice and Rhys Williams. What a breadth of experience between four speakers. Some funny, some heart breaking but all very insightful.
With an interesting year ahead, a line from Simon Best’s talk, ‘leave the jersey in a better condition than you found it’ put me in mind of the old adage ‘live every day as though it’s your last, farm as though you’ll live forever’ I look forward to seeing how these changes are implemented in the coming year.
Many of their talks are available online if you would like to see any you missed https://www.youtube.com/c/OxfordFarmingConference/videos