Soil Association 2014 Conference open for bookings

The Soil Association 2014 Conference is now open for bookings. Taking place on 8-9 October 2014, at STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon, North West England, the conference will debate some of the biggest issues facing the food and farming systems. Chaired by Farming Today’s Charlotte Smith, the conference covers key issues such as: the politics of pollinators; a good life for our farmed animals and our fractured food system and what politicians intend to do about it in the run up to the election. Spread over two days, the conference brings together experts from across the food and farming sector.

Speakers include Professor John Watson, Deputy Chief Medical Officer on Stopping the superbugs: how farming can help keep antibiotics working as well as Carlo Leifert, Professor for Ecological Agriculture, Newcastle University on Farming for health: does the way we produce food affect its nutritional value? Professor Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology, University of Sussex will speak on Keep Britain Buzzing: the latest science, politics and action to help save our pollinators, and Peter Bonfield, author of The Plan for Public Procurement –will speak on Great Food Nations? The English and Scottish government food plans, and how a future government could fix the fractured farming and food systems’
 

The conference includes the presentation of the Soil Association 2014 Organic Awards, presented by Hardeep Singh Kohli. Delegates will also be asked to vote for this year’s best new approaches in farming and growing in the 2014 Innovation Award, part of the Soil Association’s Duchy Originals Future Farming Programme. The Soil Association’s Annual General Meeting session will take place at close of the first day of the conference with a session on the charity’s work in forestry across the globe. More information can be found here.