The December volume of the SID journal Development tackles “The future of agriculture.” As guest editor, I had the privilege of bringing together some of the most articulate academics and advocates for alternatives to corporate agriculture, including Raj Patel, Paul Nicholson, Walden Bello, Sophia Murphy, Philip McMichael and Silvia Ribiero. It’s a terrific volume and an invaluable contribution to the debate on how we respond to the urgent food and ecological crises.
Information on how to get the journal is at the end of this mail: the least expensive option is to take out an individual membership to the Society for International Development (SID) which is between 5 and 20 euros, depending on where you live. Annual membership includes four issues of the journal. If you subscribe now, your membership will be processed in time to receive “The Future of Agriculture”.
in solidarity,
Nicola Bullard

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Development: the future of agriculture
What drives our present global food system?
Nutrition and life – or profit for the few?
The current global food crisis has forced world attention on the state of agriculture. Development (Volume 51 Number 4) on ‘The Future of Agriculture’ shows how the deeply unfair global agricultural system is part of the deep financial crisis and the unprecedented climate and environmental crises. The articles on agricultural policy in Pakistan, biofuels and soybean production in Latin America, chicken farming and local markets in the US, pesticides in India, the green revolution in Africa, reveal the global implications of today’s food and agriculture trade and development policy.
Despite the gravity of the situation the journal’s message is not one of despair. The blatant failure of the dominant model opens new spaces to challenge it and to propose alternatives, not only in terms of agrarian policies, but also for global social change. As the authors argue, we can reshape the food and agricultural system. Whether in the North or South we need to claim food sovereignty, or peoples’ rights to define their agricultural and food policy, including the rights of farmers and peasants, the rights of consumers and the rights of women, who play a major role in agricultural production and food. Food sovereignty requires major changes including a profound and comprehensive change in rural policies based on living wages for all, rights and support for a sustainable architecture of the global food system.
This journal issue sets out hard hitting analysis on the future of agriculture that demands radical changes in policy and civil action to take us closer to global food sovereignty based on life and health rather than profit and hunger.

CONTENTS
Upfront:
• Editorial: Food Sovereignty and the Right to Live, Wendy Harcourt
• The Unthinkable in Pursuit of the Eatable, Raj Patel
• How to Manufacture a Global Food Crisis, Walden Bello
• Via Campesina: Responding to global systemic crisis: Interview with Paul Nicholson

Thematic Section: Who Feeds the Earth: Protecting soil, water, land and seeds
• Food Sovereignty and the Contemporary Food Crisis, Peter Rosset
• Out of AGRA: The Green Revolution returns to Africa, Eric Holt-Giménez
• Scaling Up Agroecological Approaches for Food Sovereignty in Latin America, Miguel A. Altieri and Clara I. Nicholls
• The Global Free Market in Biofuels, Gretchen Gordon
• Agricultural Biodiversity: African alternatives to a ‘green revolution’, Andrew Mushita and Carol Thompson
• Seeding New Technologies to Fuel Old Injustices, Silvia Ribeiro and Hope Shand

Dialogue: Who Feeds the World?
• The Peasant as ‘Canary’? Not too early warnings of global catastrophe, Philip McMichael
• The New Bonfire of Vanities: Soybean and globalization in South America, Eduardo Gudynas
• The New Bioeconomy and the Future of Agriculture, Rachel Smolker
• Globalization and Corporate Concentration in the Food and Agriculture Sector, Sophia Murphy

Local/Global Encounters: Food for Profit or Food for Life?
• Agrifood Inequalities: Globalization and Localization, Patricia Allen and
Alice Brooke Wilson
• Sustaining Agriculture Based Livelihoods: Experiences with Non Pesticidal
Management in Andhra Pradesh, G. V. Ramanjaneyulu and V. Rukmini Rao
• A Feminist Political Economic Analysis of the US Chicken Industry, Kristin Sampson
• Gambling on Pakistan’s Agricultural Future, Najma Sadeque

Window on the World: Sonja Cappello
Book Shelf: Federica Lomiri and Sonja Cappello
Last Word: Two Points of View on The IAASTD Report, Marcia Ishii-Eiteman
and Lim Li Ching
Development explores the cutting edge issues of human-centred development, livelihoods, gender and social justice. It features diverse perspectives from civil society, development researchers, policymakers and community organizations.