ORFC 2016

[Tim W]

Anyone else go this year? I came away feeling that it has come of age ----bit less meaningless waffle in some sections than last year and a lot of active farmers with encouraging messages
Particularly liked Mike Shepherd (Nat England) and his soil zoo
And the sessions/conversations around true cost accounting for farms

Anyone go to some of the sessions I missed but would have been interested in attending---sustainable intensification was one? Or any other bits I missed?

Another encouraging thing was the amount of people attending bit's of both conferences. Good to see some cross over

 

[BELOWAVERAGE]

My eldest lad spoke, but I think it was at the OFC rather than the ORFC

 

[Tim W]

My eldest lad spoke, but I think it was at the OFC rather than the ORFC

Well done him----what was he talking about?

 

[BELOWAVERAGE]

He'd won a scholarship from Reaseheath to attend last years OFC, he then won a scholarship from the OFC to attend Agritechnica and tour some farms in Germany, he also gave a presentation to DLG. He was talking about this and how he'd benefitted from the experience.

 

[Simon C]

Yes, I was there two days. I have been every year since the ORFC began, but this was the first time I wanted to be in two or three places at once, there were at least six different meetings going on at each session.

The debate on Sustainable Intensification pitted own own @Tim May against @Guy Smith. Tim's story always goes down well having gone into his mixed. more extensive system. Guy was supposed to be representing the terrible East Anglian wheat barons, but he straight away informed us that he also had a dairy herd and his grass was in a rotation with the arable, which took the wild out off his detractors sales.

Unfortunately Guy then spent most of the session defending the NFU's position on various things which was not what it was supposed to be about.

 

[Guy Smith]

The title of the session was 'sustainable intensification and mixed farming - how to achieve climate and food security' but as I said at the beginning I found it so wide ranging I was happy to get into the Q&A immediately and go where the audience wanted to take it. I thought it quite a good discussion and I don't think I spent my whole time defending the NFU but obviously you took that impression Simon.

Meanwhile back at OFC

Belowaverage's son must be Robert Yardley. He did his old chap proud

http://www.ofc.org.uk/videos/2016/robert-yardley

 

[Simon C]

The title of the session was 'sustainable intensification and mixed farming - how to achieve climate and food security' but as I said at the beginning I found it so wide ranging I was happy to get into the Q&A immediately and go where the audience wanted to take it. I thought it quite a good discussion and I don't think I spent my whole time defending the NFU but obviously you took that impression Simon.

Meanwhile back at OFC

Belowaverage's son must be Robert Yardley. He did his old chap proud

http://www.ofc.org.uk/videos/2016/robert-yardley

Sorry Guy, it wasn't meant to be a criticism of you. Perhaps I should have said "had to spend much of the time defending NFU policy".

I am not that interested in farming politics so was hoping the debate would have gone into more depth regarding whether the present system of higher and higher inputs in the arable East is sustainable while much of the West is stuck with livestock because they can't do anything else.