With this issue, we complete another year of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (ASFS). Our journal continues to be a strong voice for food system sustainability, and the role model for agroecology as a participatory, transdisciplinary, and action-oriented approach for food system change. Agroecology as a science links with farming and food practice, especially where different knowledge systems join together and new forms of knowledge emerge. This new knowledge links with the third component of agroecology – its change oriented approach that has become part of social movements for food security and food sovereignty around the world. The three Special Issues that we have sponsored during 2017 show the breadth of this agroecological approach:
Volume 41(3-4): A Brief History of Agroecology in Spain and Latin America
Volume 41(7): Agroecology: building an ecological knowledge-base for food system sustainability
Volume 41(8): Sustainable Food Planning and Urban Agriculture
Agroecology continues to promote sustainability of the entire food system, from local to global, and from the field to the table.
This year has also brought a couple important changes. One is the retirement of John Sulzycki, Senior Editor with CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group. For me, John has been an essential supporter of agroecology. He has promoted the field with the development of the important Series in Agroecology that has produced a remarkable collection of key works in food system sustainability. He helped guide my textbook, Agroecology: the ecology of sustainable food systems, through its second and third editions. But perhaps of most significance, it was John who most convinced me to take on the editorship of this journal back in 2007 when I was already faced with a full agroecological plate! I will miss his steady editorial hand and sharp wit, but am sure that the Taylor and Francis team will continue to maintain the support for publications in agroecology that John has so strongly established.
I am also pleased to welcome Dr. Bruce Ferguson as Associate Editor of ASFS. As the recognition has grown of our journal being a primary voice for research in agroecology, our workload has also increased dramatically. With a PhD in agroecology from the University of Michigan, and extensive research and teaching experience at Ecosur in Chiapas, Mexico, Bruce brings expertise in restoration ecology, animal-based agroecosystems, and agroforestry to the journal. We welcome Bruce and look forward to a long and productive collaboration.
¡Viva la agroecología!