Our reflections on the Organic Growers Gathering
Date Published: 21st October 2026
Our Network Coordinator Suzy’s reflections
At the end of last month we were lucky enough to attend the The Organic Growers Gathering (OGG) and what a fabulous event it was.
Hosted by George Bennett and the team at the wonderful Sandy Lane Farm, organised by an inspiring team of people and produced in association with the Organic Growers Alliance, The Sheepdrove Trust and ourselves, the event brought together over 400 growers from across the country in what truly was a celebration of organic growing.
With sessions on everything from seeds to land access and the politics of poetry to ageing as a grower, farm walks, brilliant food from Two Trees Catering and drinks from Old Tree Brewery, a sauna, kids area and excellent music, what more could you want. They even managed to programme a full moon!
Our Policy and Communications Manager Amy Luck chaired a session on “How to Engage Your Community in Your Project” with fantastic contributions from Nick Fraser from Cae Tan CSA, Amy Cairns from School Farm CSA and Ryan Boyd from The Oak Tree Farm. We were also part of a UK Fruit and Vegetable Coalition session, alongside LWA, OGA Soil Association representatives, on “A Horticulture Sector Growth Plan Fit For The Next 25 Years?”, sharing ideas and collecting feedback. We were joined for the day by an official from the Horticulture team at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) who we are working with on the plan.
We had one sticky moment when I asked the audience how many people would like to apply for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and almost no hands went up. Having spent much of the last six months trying to encourage a policy shift for support for our farms, which could come from SFI, this was not the ideal response. However, after the session, asking people about it, it became much clearer why there had been no hands in the room. People didn’t know about SFI, they didn’t think it was worth it for the paperwork and time taken to fill in an application, they were too small to apply, or had heard stories of others trying to apply and had been put off. Actually, the conversations engendered by unpicking what had happened in the tent led to some of the best ones I had all weekend and were brilliant evidence for our Defra official to hear.
Another conversation about eligibility for government payments and comparisons with Wales was interesting. The speaker suggested that, as in Wales, eligibility for payments for those below three hectares should be based on paid hours on the books rather than size – 550 hours per year currently in the Welsh system, and that we could go even further, looking at payments for labour rather than size as a way of calculating rewards. For example, it’s taken as an industry standard that one dairy cow entails around 40 hours labour per year. What would happen if we measured CSAs similarly – a labour requirement for 100sqm of intensive market garden, another figure for 100sqm of field scale and maybe a third for protected cropping. Then farms are rewarded on the basis of this, rather than size. So, your payment for organic or integrated pest management would be based on labour units rather than special units. This was certainly interesting to ponder, and any move away from area based payments and towards a recognition of the labour-intensive nature of agroecological horticulture would be very welcome.
Finally, the weekend was impeccably captured by Liv James from the Organic Growers Podcast and we were very chuffed to be part of it. Hear our two Amys speaking about CSA here.
We love the Organic Growers Gathering and are super proud to be (a small) part of the team. If you’ve got ideas for things you’d like to see next year let us know!
