Soil Association Conference: Focus on innovation and good food for all

The Soil Association annual conference took place at Central Hall in London on 9-10 October 2013. It brought together high profile speakers and practitioners from a range of backgrounds to share and inspire best practice and discuss novel approaches - raising new questions and championing ways to feed this generation and the next healthily and humanely.

(Picture: Panel discussion on Innovation and Facing the Future - Dr Tom Macmillan, Soil Association; Julian Walker-Palin, ASDA; Andre Leu, IFOAM; Claire Pritchard, Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency and Capital Growth; Tom Curtis, Managing Director of LandShare and Peter Melchett, Soil Association)

Day one of the conference  was hosted by the Soil Association President Monty Don and brought together public health and education leaders from across the UK for the first time under the banner of Good Food for All. It looked at local partnerships based around food as an agent of change and discussed how food holds the key not only to transforming individual lives but also to addressing major social, economic and environmental problems.

Kevin Fenton (picture), the national Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England (PHE), set out the priorities of the new agency and explained how food underpins the ability to achieve every part of the strategy. "Food and the Food for Life Partnership and the School Food Plan fit with so many of the areas Public Health England will be focusing on." Myles Bremner, the director of the recently launched School Food Plan, which is supported by the government, cited the Soil Association-led Food for Life Partnership as a model for a whole-school approach to transforming food culture in schools. The conference also addressed the growing problem of food poverty and the true cost of food. Delegates heard that the cost of diet-related diseases is already £10.9bn (close to €13bn). A sharp rise in child hunger and malnutrition is being seen and also problems with the elderly being able to access and afford food. (Picture: Monty Don, Soil Association President, with Mr & Mrs Daltry from Chevelswarde Organic Growers who were presented with a long serving organic licensee plaque).

Solutions like Magic Breakfast shared evidence of success and good practice - how schools in London have seen attendance and attainment increase for the price of a breakfast. New large-scale projects such as the Sustainable Food Cities partnership from the Soil Association, Food Matters and Sustain shared plans to create food networks where everyone has access to good food within 500 metres of where they live. And the head teacher of Chestnuts Primary school in London shared her experience of how food – through the Food for Life Partnership approach – has transformed her school, with engaged parents and children in one of the most deprived wards in the country now eating 40% organic food every day in their school meals. The Soil Association’s Libby Grundy, the director of the Food for Life Partnership, said: “Examples like Chestnuts School show that good food for everyone, especially the most deprived, can be a right and not a privilege.” (Picture: Children from Cyril Jackson Primary school, Tower Hamlets, London, benefit from Magic Breakfast)

More information, including quotes and presentations from day one are available here.

Day two of the Soil Association’s annual conference - Giving it Welly - called for farmers to be at the heart of agricultural research and innovation. Chaired by BBC Radio 4 Farming Today’s Charlotte Smith, the conference explored farmer-led innovation in developing countries and learning from other sectors, including health, the arts and education.  Professor Nic Lampkin, the director of the Organic Research Centre, set out the research priorities for organic farming which, he argued, could be game-changing for the wider farming sector. He reminded delegates that innovations and technologies that have changed farming throughout history have been led by farmers themselves, citing the plough as an example. “Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves who research is for,” he said. Welcome and introduction to the innovation award
 

Practical examples were shared from the Soil Association’s Duchy Original’s Future Farming Programme, which brings farmers together to learn from each other through ‘field labs’ – matching experimenting farmers with skilled researchers.  This approach was strongly endorsed by the National Farmers Union Vice President Adam Quinney and Professor Tim Benton, UK Champion for Global Food Security.  In his conference address, Tim Benton highlighted the importance of diversity for sustainability and resilience to the changing world - emphasising that more focus should be on the quality and kind of food we produce, asking: “Should we be thinking about sustainable nutrition not sustainable agriculture?”
 

Tina Barsby, the director of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), gave examples of how regulations restricting agro-chemicals, herbicide resistance and rising prices are driving non-organic farmers to look to the weed/pest management practices of their organic neighbours for ‘new’ solutions. She also confirmed that there is a place at the table for organic and ecological agriculture in the Government’s new agri-tech strategy. (Picture: Helen Browning, Chief Executive, Soil Association, opened the conference and also introduced the innovation award)
 

Following three rounds of very lively debate and voting from conference delegates, Ezee Tree won the 2013 Soil Association Innovation Award for their biodegradable tree guards. The award rewards excellence in innovative approaches to sustainable, low impact farming and growing. With the rise in agro-forestry as a farming system that has positive ecological and economic benefits, Ezee Tree looks set for a great future. Aquagronomy, that developed a wheel track roller to reduce soil compaction contributing to water run-off, and Farm Drop - a new system for connecting people with local producers - were runners- up. The winner received a cash prize of £3000, with two runner-up prizes of £1000 each.

More information, as well as quotes and presentations from day two are available here.