Stockfree Organic at Organic Growers Alliance OGA conference Organic Matters
Stockfree Organic is the farming branch of VON.
18th October 2022, Birmingham
The Organic Matters conference is the most important event for OGA team and its 400 strong membership.
The event attracts over 200 small-scale growers (on-line and in person) who share the same aspirations about growing and offering food to local communities in the most environmentally friendly ways possible.
Speakers include experts, practitioners, and researchers from across the country and the day is structured in multiple workshops and plenary sessions that mirror the nowadays issues and achievements in organic horticulture.
This year’s programme included speeches on
- The profile of organic consumers
- Extending the growing season
- Coping with cost of living crisis
- Mental health and small-scale horticulture, and more.
Vegan Organic Network was a proud sponsor of 2022 Organic Matters conference and was featured in a plenary session dedicated to Soil Health and Carbon sequestration. Iain Tolhurst of Tolhurst Organic, Centre of Excellent for Stockfree Organic and Veganic Food presented the results of most recent soil tests at his farm, showing amazing resilience of stockfree organic soils, albeit intensively farmed for annual vegetables. Iain also updated the audience on the most recent developments with the Stockfree Organic Standards.
VON had a stand promoting our Stockfree Organic Standards with a newly developed banner and leaflets aimed at organic farmers and growers interested to become Stockfree Organic. Sparrow Middleton, manning the stall, says “A lot of growers came up to pick up a flier and chat, especially after Tolly’s presentation”.
VON will continue contacting OGA members via their quarterly magazine The Organic Grower.
It is interesting that a special workshop was dedicated to grower-to-grower certification schemes, such as IFOAM-approved Participatory Guarantee Schemes (PGS), now widely spread across the world. These are very similar scheme to the VON “Grower-to-Grower” inspections.
However, given the very intensive and time-consuming nature of such schemes, it was felt that these could be more appropriate for new entrant groups of young growers.
The theme will be discussed again in January at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
