Nearly all contemporary people subsist on cultivated plants, most of which are vulnerable to diseases. Yet, there have been few studies of what traditional people know – and do not know – about crop disease. Agricultural scientists in general are becoming aware of the potential contribution...

Food issues are generally regarded as agricultural and rural issues. The urban food system is less visible than such other systems as transportation, housing, employment, or even the environment. The reasons for its low visibility include the historic process by which issues and policies came to...

Recent debate has focused on the use of intellectual property regimes for the protection of indigenous resources. Both domesticated crops and useful wild plants are shaped by indigenous knowledge and by their uses within indigenous cultures. This implies that the preservation of cultural systems...

Agriculture has been enormously productive in recent decades. The main problem is that fragmentation of issues, knowledge, and responsibilities has hidden the costs associated with this success. These are mainly environmental, social, and health costs, which have been assigned to other...

In this special issue, Steins and Edwards introduced the notion of nested platforms for resource use negotiation as a tool to facilitate collective action amongst multiple-users in complex common-pool resource management scenarios. Five discussion statements were put forward to aid the debate on...

Urban agriculture in Cuba has rapidly become a significant source of fresh produce for the urban and suburban populations. A large number of urban gardens in Havana and other major cities have emerged as a grassroots movement in response to the crisis brought about by the loss of trade, with the...

Practitioners and advocates of community food security (CFS) envision food systems that are decentralized, environmentally-sound over a long time-frame, supportive of collective rather than only individual needs, effective in assuring equitable food access, and created by democratic...

Modern and historical Japanese societies are and were quite comfortable with a nature defined, designed, and dominated by humans. While contemporary Japanese are concerned about the environment, especially about non-timber (“green”) forest resources, conservation organizations are generally...

It is important to talk about corporations as a class, about trade agreements, and about government policy; but without examining specific examples of how real corporations actually shape the world to suit their purposes, we stand little chance of understanding the determinative forces behind...

This essay tells a story. It is a story of the author's experience with community supported agriculture (CSA). It is also a story that depicts the difficulties of academic activism and grass-roots engagement. As an academic and an activist, the author argues that it is important to admit and...