Earlier this month, I attended the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) – now in its 14th year.

This year’s conference was a hybrid of online and in-person, with 4000 delegates attending from more than 150 countries to demonstrate the critical need for food system change and the possibilities of achieving this.

Delegates were speaking from the length and breadth of the food and farming chain. It culminated in shared experiences and opportunities to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss.

Farmers, growers, chefs, scientists, ecologists and policymakers spoke with urgency and intent on putting our food production squarely at the centre of this monumental transition to an equitable food future.

The resounding message was that change must be across the whole system. As many scientists have graphically evidenced, the result of political inertia to move with haste in making change a reality is catastrophic.

As farmers, we know we’re in the frontline of the impacts of global warming and nature loss. But we’re also at the forefront of delivering tangible solutions – should the right mechanisms be in place to support us.

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In past years of ORFC, the dominant question was whether agro-ecology could produce enough food to feed everyone. Now we know – and as the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, said last November – that nature-friendly farming can, as part of an agro-ecological food system, feed a growing population with nutritious food while addressing the climate and nature emergencies.

Giving evidence at the UK Select Committee last year, Fakhri said: “The scientific question has been: Will we be able to produce enough food to feed people by doing things this way?

"Following and tracking the research for the last 20 years on this issue and staying on top of things, the research keeps pointing to the answer being 'yes'. In the last 60 years, we have increased production of food by 300%.

"We have outpaced the growth of the population, but malnutrition and hunger are still a problem. The problem is not production, it is about making food in a way that is better, and agro-ecology can do it. All the science is suggesting and pointing more and more to the fact that it will be able to produce enough food – and good food – for people.”

The encouraging sentiments of his testimony were written into the conference’s opening plenary by visionary founders, Ruth West and Colin Tudge. It was a reminder of agro-ecology’s potential that kickstarted an energetic and constructive programme of events.

This was my fifth ORFC and I represented NFFN on two panels. I spoke on land use strategies and how we can make the right choice for farms in the transition to a good food future.

From my perspective, ecological and economic goals are intrinsic, and any framework for farming’s land use must capitalise on the mutually beneficial exchange between food production and nature.

“A land use strategy is an alignment of intent. It’s a reference point,” I said to a packed room. “It does not dictate what you grow, but it identifies a direction of travel and the funding to farmers follows that.”

Elsewhere at the conference, diverse voices championed the opportunities for diversification on farms, strengthening farm resilience, promoting healthy diets, the barriers to localised farming systems and radical but realistic policy changes across the UK.

Presentations spanned heritage grains, biodiversity innovations, soil health management techniques, agro-ecology and profitability, and waste solutions – among many others.

I value the ORFC for its extraordinary capacity to bring delegates together, representing the whole food chain from across the globe. On an international stage, contextualising the nuances of country-level developments brings the narrative back to how these challenges are shared. So too, is our innovation, energy and resolve to change.

Diversity and inclusivity are key – but no more monoculture, please. The mono-culturalisation of our world is causing incomprehensible suffering, much of which can and should be alleviated by a complete change in how we farm, produce, distribute and eat food.

That we have to change is beyond doubt and argument – it’s the how. It’s evident from ORFC and Oxford Farming Conference that the main barrier to change is industry mindsets and that farmers cannot make changes in isolation.

It can only be a whole-system solution, including policymakers and with regulated financial support. I’m taking my unbridled enthusiasm from ORFC into the rest of my year, knowing that, as farmers, we can have the agency to change using the resources already at our fingertips and beneath our feet.