AIC Dinner & Conference 2024: Phil Bicknell, Jim Fairlie MSP and Paul Cherry join speaker line up
More AIC Conference speakers have been announced for 2024, including the Scottish Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity Jim Fairlie MSP, UK Agri-Tech Centre's Phil Bicknell, and Groundswell co-founder Paul Cherry.
The AIC Dinner & Conference is set to return on 12-13 November 2024 in Peterborough, with an unmissable line-up of thought leaders from the worlds of politics, business, academia, and trade considering this year's Conference theme Capturing "added value" within the agri-food supply chain.
The latest speakers to be revealed will join the author and businessman Henry Dimbleby MBE, National Farmers Union (NFU) President Tom Bradshaw, and Will Jennings, General Manager at Rabobank. The Conference chair is experienced broadcaster and journalist Tom Heap.
For more details and to book early bird tickets with a saving of more than 10%, go to the AIC Dinner & Conference 2024 website or click below.
More on this year's speakers
Paul Cherry farms 1,000ha with his brother in Hertfordshire. He and his family host and run the highly successful Groundswell Festival, which has become the premier event for regenerative agriculture attracting speakers and delegates from across the globe.
Also due to appear on stage at the AIC Conference 2024 is Kent farmer Emma Loder-Symonds, who co-owns and directs Nonington Farms with her husband, James.
She heads up the educational and environmental sides of the farm business, hosting thousands of people each year on their carbon-negative farm seeking to better understand regenerative agriculture and sustainable food production.
This work saw her farm win both the NFU's South East Farming Hero in 2022, and a LEAF-Bayer Education Award in 2019.
With Artificial Intelligence increasingly embedding itself into businesses and personal lives, Professor Per Ola Kristensson of the University of Cambridge will share his thoughts on what the technology holds for the future of the agri-food industry.
Professor Kristensson is the co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
Phil Bicknell has been Chief Executive Officer of the UK Agri-Tech Centre since it launched in April 2024. He joined the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) - one of the three companies which merged to create the UK Agri-Tech Centre - in 2021 and has a degree in agricultural economics.
Dinner & Conference in detail
The Conference will be held at the Holiday Inn West, Peterborough on 13 November 2024. It is the agri-food supply chain's flagship annual event and saw record attendance for the Conference in 2023.
The Conference will be complemented by a black tie dinner - AIC’s pre-Conference Dinner - the night before on 12 November.
The pre-Conference Dinner is a special evening open to Members, industry stakeholders, and the trade. It will also be held at the Holiday Inn West in Peterborough, with this year's guest speaker confirmed as Rt Hon Sir Robert Goodwill, former Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
This year's Dinner & Conference partners Kiwa Agri-Food, the US Soybean Export Council (USSEC), and Lantra, alongside charity partner the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI).
Visit the AIC Dinner & Conference webpage for full details and to book your tickets.
Author
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.
