Category: News

On the first of July we say goodbye to Senior Crops Researcher Dominic Amos after six and a half years at ORC.

ORC was represented at the Sixth European Agroforestry Conference (EURAF 2022), which took place in Nuoro, Sardinia from 16-20th May 2022

The Summer issue of the ORC Bulletin (136) has mailed out! The Spring 2022 issue (No.135) is now available for free download.

Defra’s Food Strategy White Paper fails to acknowledge or address the breadth of issues facing the food system

ORC Trustee Professor Janet Dwyer has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2022

GM tomato won’t address the problem of vitamin D deficiency because poor nutrition is a function of poverty and a broken food system says GM Freeze

OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers) has expressed serious concern over Defra’s introduction of their Genetic Technology Bill that received its first reading in Parliament today.

We would like to thank everybody who supported our Climate Friendly Farming appeal

IFOAM Organics Europe position paper on carbon farming. Finding synergies between climate action and biodiversity protection

Chicken is the UK’s favourite meat. We farm a billion birds each year. Almost all of them are housed in industrial units and fed a diet of imported soya.

Join Agromix’s #AskAScientist Challenge to have your questions answered by a panel of expert scientists in an open live-streamed session within EURAF’s 6th European Agroforestry Conference

Are you farming in England? Have your voice heard on agroforestry! This short survey will help us target relevant information on agroforestry to the right farmers and make agroforestry really happen in England.

OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers) has published its manifesto ‘Championing organic within agricultural policy’ to highlight the key advantages of the organic approach in response to the unprecedented transitional upheaval in the farming sector.

In the latest episode of BBC one’s flagship countryside programme Countryfile, they cover the potential for regenerative farming in the UK.

Help us to identify indicators that can capture the provisioning of ecosystem services by farming systems, in particular those with a focus on biodiversity, human nutrition and social well-being.

New Practice Abstract written by Katie Bliss and Mark Measures as part of the DiverIMPACTS project. Bliss K, Measures M (2022) Including diverse leys in arable rotations. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6241557 Problem Leguminous leys are a cornerstone…

https://youtu.be/eYOWbze6aIU The SEEGSLIP project sought to evidence the practices of a particular group of farmers, the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA) in terms of their social, ecological and economic sustainability. This video explains the project, the…

And Bulletin 122 available for free download

Soil Association Certification’s Organic Market Report 2022 reveals the UK organic market is now worth a record £3.05 billion after a 5.2% growth in sales in 2021, with shoppers spending almost £60 million on organic…

Farmers who convert to organic will receive up to double the previous rates in a raft of government payment increases that are launching amid strong growth across the organic market. Payments for organic farming in…

This recently published manual contains 29 factsheets created within the POWER project (part of Horizon 2020, CORE Organic Co-fund project). The manual is split into chapters with the factsheets presented under four major themes. The…

Now in its 10th year, the Innovative Farmers network is celebrating the success of more than 120 field labs that have placed farmers in the driving seat of agricultural research, with the network connected with…

A survey of over 220 livestock farms (80% commercial) in the UK and Ireland has reported up to 69% reduction in antibiotic use, up to 70% reduction in vet costs, significant reduction in disease frequency…

How can agroforestry contribute towards biodiversity conservation? The Policy Brief, written by Colin Tosh, is based on evidence presented in, and feedback to the online workshop held 20/10/2021. The key findings were: Agroforestry increases farmland…