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Oxford Real Farming Conference 2025: Five NFFN takeaways from the annual event

The NFFN travelled to Oxford to attend the annual Oxford Real Farming Conference - here are five things we learned from two jam-packed days of talks and events.

The 16th Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) took place on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 January, with thousands of delegates from across the UK and around the world discussing a vast range of subjects based around farming, food production, the nature and climate crises and the need to transform the food system for sustainability and justice.

Initially created as an alternative to the long-established Oxford Farming Conference (OFC), the ORFC has developed into one of the world’s most important forums for discussing progressive, nature-friendly farming and alternative methods of food production and land use, as well as answering the biggest questions about what we grow and eat around the globe

The NFFN was once again a visible presence at the 2025 conference, organising and contributing to talks and showcasing our positive, solutions-focused approach to tackling the big issues farming faces. 

Here are five takeaways from two packed days of thought-provoking talks and conversations:

NFFN farmer’s successful story of transition delights audience

The NFFN’s stand-alone event at this year’s ORFC was a Farm Deep Dive on the Thursday lunchtime, as Farming Champion Florence Mannerings took the audience in the Assembly Room at Oxford Town Hall through the story of how moving to Chilton Farm in Kent led to her and her family swapping conventional dairy agriculture for a nature-friendly approach.

Florence inspired the room with the transformation of a rubbish-strewn farm into a successful microdairy with rotational grazing systems, mixed-species swards and lots of hedgerow planting. She spoke about diversifying the farm’s income with a B&B and building relationships with her local communities through selling milk directly from a mobile vending machine. It was a fascinating conversation, ably chaired by NFFN Cymru steering group member Claire Whittle. (You can read Florence’s case study here).

NFFN farmers tackling the thorniest and biggest subjects

Our farmers certainly did not shy away from tackling controversial or difficult subjects during a conference in which huge questions about the sustainability of farming, what kind of food farms should be producing and how the industry reacts to the climate and biodiversity crises were front and centre throughout.

NFFN-supported research on finding the Maximum Sustainable Output (MSO) of farms to ensure both financial and environmental viability was the subject of a joint session with Sustain, while our CEO Martin Lines told a panel on ecocide law about the importance of having clear legal frameworks to level the playing field, avoid offshoring harm, and support farmers in delivering the solutions society needs for a sustainable future.

NFFN farmer Matt Swarbrick considered the relationship between agriculture and rewilding and NFFN England vice chair Holly Purdey discussed the future of our diets and whether we should be eating ‘better meat, more plants’. Some of these events did not hesitate to explore tough areas and encouraged open and frank conversations on the most contentious of topics in the sector.

We want to go mainstream, but there are barriers

Throughout the conference, a repeated theme was how nature-friendly and agroecological farmers want to take this movement mainstream, to make this approach the dominant one and for reform to supply chains and retail to ensure everyone has access to high-quality, nutritious food produced in harmony with nature rather than by working against it.

ORFC makes clear the scale of the task needed to take nature-friendly farming mainstream, but gives hope with so much commitment, enthusiasm and expertise at the conference

The scale of the task to make this happen, though, is clear. Whether it’s proving the business case for changing how farming operates, looking at the wider barriers that prevent a just transition for all, considering how agro-environmental schemes can adequately help farmers transition rapidly or putting farms on a firmer financial footing (remembering the phrase “you can’t be green when you’re in the red”), there is a lot of work to be done. However, the sheer enthusiasm and commitment to a greener farming future on display across ORFC does give grounds for hope.

Remembering the importance of wonder and delight in nature and farming

ORFC can be an extremely moving experience, especially when speakers tell the conference about their deep bonds with the land they farm and the biodiversity and habitats they work alongside.

This year’s conference was no exception. Whether it was the Veteran Trees session with NFFN England chair James Robinson discussing a tree rooted in undisturbed 1,000-year-old soil, the remarks by NFFN Scotland chair Denise Walton at the opening plenary on the importance of feeling connected, or the Hot Poets forging unexpected links with nature-friendly farmers through beautiful and clever words; ORFC is a reminder of the importance of wonder and interconnectedness in our food systems and our lives as a whole.

Gap between actions and words in agricultural transition needs addressing

Throughout the ORFC there was a palpable frustration at the chasm between the level of innovation and change among the delegates and speakers and the support from those with power and the purse strings.

There is a phenomenal amount of expertise in the room at ORFC, covering every aspect of nature-friendly farming from agroforestry and silvopasture to herbal leys and cover cropping to no or min-till arable farming to nature-based flooding solutions. But too often the support from politicians or funding bodies is lukewarm. It is both inspiring and infuriating to think that for all the amazing things we learned and saw over the two days of ORFC, this is still only a sneak preview of what we could have if nature-friendly farming was properly supported and rolled out at scale.

A selection of talks at the conference will be made available on the ORFC YouTube channel.