Food expert Jack Bobo to headline OFC 2026

Food expert Jack Bobo has been confirmed as the headline speaker at next year’s Oxford Farming Conference (7-9 January). 

Mr Bobo’s career spans international law, food and environmental policy, and has seen him give more than 500 keynote speeches in over 50 countries.

A consistent thread throughout is the importance of communicating the positive aspects of agricultural innovation and food production in a world that often criticises farming.

See also: OFC 2026 to focus on farming resilience

He said: “We are living in the age of outrage where the best story wins.

“There are three drivers of this outrage. The first is when we feel our future is threatened. The second, when we feel the system is rigged against us, and the third, when our identity is attacked.

“Well, that should sound familiar, because we feel that in food and agriculture every single day.”

However, he added that we need to make sure that the villain in a story isn’t the farmer, that we make climate change or hunger the villain so that we can all rally around it.

Drought challenges

Mr Bobo’s base in California is fitting given the challenges he addresses through his work. 

The Golden State is the US’s third-largest state and a powerhouse of agriculture, producing more than 400 commodities – nearly half of the US’s vegetables and over three-quarters of its fruit and nuts.

It is also a severely water-stressed state where drought is quickly becoming a way of life for all Californians.

Jack Bobo © Jane Craigie Marketing

According to the State Water Resource Control Board, since 2000, California has experienced 15 years of severe drought and is experiencing the worst megadrought in 1,200 years.

Mr Bobo said: “We have significant challenges in agriculture, not least that farming uses 40% of the Earth’s land and 70% of fresh water, and the impact of climate change on weather patterns makes it harder to produce the same crops in the same way.”

Reframing farming’s story

Mr Bobo is a big advocate of turning the narrative about farming into a positive.

“We need to change how we communicate. We produce dramatically more food today than we did in 1960 on more or less the same amount of land; 30% of the world’s population was going hungry back then, today it’s 10%,” he said.

“That’s still 800 million people and that is a disaster. And yet, 30 years ago, 20% of all the people on the planet would have been going to bed hungry, and 60 years ago, it would have been 30%; so the thing we see as a challenge is actually an indication of progress.

“The situation isn’t bad and getting worse, it’s good and getting better, but just not fast enough.”

Population decline post 2050

In his upcoming address to the Oxford Farming Conference, Mr Bobo is certain to cover population dynamics, highlighting a fundamental point that is rarely mentioned, which is that after 2050, population growth will slow dramatically and eventually decline.

“Between now and 2050, it will get harder to feed the world, but after 2050, it will get easier if certain conditions are met,” he noted.

The Oxford Farming Conference runs from 7-9 January 2026. Jack Bobo will speak on the morning of 8 January. To find out more about the 2026 conference and to book tickets, go to www.ofc.org.uk