OGI Conference 2025
OGI Conference 2025
OGI Conference 2025 took place on November 25th in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny. Thank you to all our conference delegates, speakers, exhibitors, the team at NOTS, and the team at the Avalon House Hotel for making it such a fantastic day, and to the Dept of Agriculture, Food & the Marine for their ongoing support.
This year’s speakers included Bryan O’Hara, pioneer no-till grower from Connecticut, USA, on his first visit to Ireland, renowned UK organic farmer Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford, and Geetie Singh-Watson, owner of the Bull Inn, in Devon, UK and founder of the world’s first organic pub. They were joined by an expert panel of Irish growers including Jim Cronin, Janet Power, Joe & Aoife Reilly and Aonghus Ó Coistealbha, Mairead Costin, Molly Garvey and speakers from the OGI.
Find out more and watch speaker presentations from the day below.
SPEAKERS & PANELLISTS
Guy Singh-Watson
We were thrilled to welcome Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford, to OGI Conference 2025. Over the last 30 years, Guy has taken Riverford from one man and a wheelbarrow delivering homegrown organic veg to friends, to a national veg box scheme delivering to around 50,000 customers a week across the UK.
He has championed organic farming and fair treatment for people and planet, building one of the UK’s most respected 100% employee-owned businesses. Guy will share the inspiring journey behind Riverford, his ethos of doing business differently, and why staying true to your values can grow something extraordinary.
Bryan O’ Hara
Bryan O’ Hara is an organic vegetable farmer, educator, and author known for bringing life back into the soil through no-till and mid-till growing systems. From his Tobacco Road Farm in Connecticut, USA, he has spent more than thirty years refining methods that nurture soil health, reduce disturbance, and support ecological and economic resilience. His book, No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, reflects years of dedication to understanding soil biology, composting, cover cropping, and low-input methods farming in harmony with nature rather than against it. His approach offers hope and tangible practice for growers facing rising climate pressures, rising costs, and changing weather.
Bryan made the trip to Ireland for OGI Conference 2025, to connect with the farmers and land of his ancestors as he puts his feet in Irish soil for the first time!
Geetie Singh-Watson
Geetie Singh-Watson, founder of The Bull Inn, in Devon, also joined our stellar line-up at OGI Conference 2025. Geetie opened the world’s first certified organic pub in London, back in 1998 – the Bull Inn is now her 4th!
Geetie joined OGI Board member Barry Connolly in conversation at OGI Conference 2025, to discuss the values that drive her award-winning commitment to sustainability, ethical sourcing and community, sharing her vision on what it means to do business responsibly — with heart, integrity and a deep respect for people and planet.
Máiréad Costin
Máiréad Costin is an organic horticulture grower based in the Gaeltacht area of Ring, Co. Waterford. She runs Garraí Mara Organic Veg Farm, supplying fresh organic produce to local restaurants, shops, and markets in Dungarvan and Waterford City. After 20 years working as a nurse, Máiréad made the move into farming seeking time in nature and a new way of life. What began on a ¼ acre behind her family home has grown into a thriving organic enterprise certified by the Organic Trust.
Passionate about sustainability and community, Máiréad has also hosted Social Farming groups and plans to offer organic gardening courses in the future. Máiréad will discuss the challenges and opportunities building a sustainable career as a female horticulturist in Ireland – how to create balance while growing a diversified business and maintaining a quality of life.
Tools & Tech Panel
Four of Ireland’s leading organic growers joined us at Conference 2025 to reveal their favourite tools — and how they have boosted their efficiency as a grower. Each grower showcased two trusted tools and shared their insights into how these tools have transformed their day-to-day growing efficiencies.
Jim Cronin
One of Ireland’s leading horticulturalists, Jim Cronin farmed a 16-acre organic market garden farm in Co. Clare for over 30 years, adopting biological agriculture principles. A much sought-after teacher and educator, Jim combines old traditions with new knowledge and methods based on sound principals, proving that one can make a good commercial yield from a small area without compromising nature.
Janet Power, Gorse Farm
Gorse Farm is a certified Organic market garden, located in Bunclody on the Carlow-Wexford border, specialising in supplying leafy greens, particularly salad greens, to supermarkets and restaurants across Wexford. The remaining portion of the farm is dedicated to tree-planting, hedgerows, flowers and re-wilding.
Aonghus Ó Coistealbha, An Garraí Mara
An Garraí Glas is a 1-acre farm where Aonghus grows a variety of chemical-free vegetables including lettuce/salad leaves, onions, tomatoes, radishes, herbs and more. A tremendous amount of vegetables are grown from a small space, not to mention a challenging landscape with plenty of stone and a strong Atlantic prevailing wind. All of the fresh produce grown is sold to local shops and restaurants, as well as in the on-farm shop.
Joe & Aoife Reilly, Glasraí Organic Farm
Glasraí is a 7-acre organic vegetable farm growing a wide range of fruit and vegetables, with a focus on soil health, using a combination of minimal soil disturbance and continual cover cropping to protect soils and build microbiology and fertility. We are invested in seeing small ecological farms succeed in supporting families and communities, and in a way that is healthy for everyone who works there.
Molly Garvey
Molly Garvey is the founder of Food Facilitation that works at the essential cross-over of community, food, and farming in Ireland. She’s on a life-long quest to uncover all the ways we can work better together. Her work focuses on the power of unlikely collaboration in achieving positive change, supporting crucial group processes for organisations like the FAO Irish Youth Food Forum and the Irish Government SDG Fora.
Molly recently completed a Nuffield Ireland Farming Scholarship on the topic of “Good Conflict.” This incredible research brought her to 70 farms across five continents.
She shared some of the most insightful learnings from these global farm visits at OGI Conference 2025.
