UK: Organic Producers’ Conference in Birmingham

The 8th Organic Producers' Conference took place in Birmingham on 22 – 23 January 2014 (picture). The Organic Research Centre’s annual conference is an event where organic and other producers interested in ecological approaches to sustainable food production come together with researchers and advisers to share ideas on making agriculture perform better – for business and society, the Organic Research Centre reports.

With the recent launches of Defra’s CAP consultation and Sustainable Intensification Research Platform, as well as the government’s Agri-Tech Strategy, is there any place left for organic farming and similar agro-ecological approaches to sustainable food production? Are the concept of sustainable intensification and the new strategies broad enough to not only focus on techno-fixes or can we find better ecological and knowledge-based solutions to meeting sustainability challenges? Is producing ever more food really the priority, or are the climate change, environmental pollution, soil and water degradation and biodiversity loss problems now too great? Should our real focus be on intensifying the sustainability of our food systems, rather than intensifying production with questionable sustainability benefits? The traditional conference format was restructured in order to enable participants to debate these questions and help find real, innovative solutions. The reports and presentations from the conference held at Aston University are now online here.