IN THIS ISSUE: More Than Value$ in the Food System

First paragraphs: In this jam-packed summer issue of JAFSCD, we offer over 300 pages of commentaries, Voices from the Grassroots essays, and peer-reviewed papers, including a special transdisciplinary take on values in the food system by a team of authors from the University of Vermont. On the whole, the scholarly research and voices from practitioners in the field in this issue paint a stark and yet sometimes heartening picture about the future of food and agriculture on our planet. But the warnings are clear and we need to heed them. However, first I extend our condolences to those who have lost loved ones and colleagues to the pandemic. The United State has just surpassed 200,000 deaths and 7,000,000 cases in its ongoing, vain experiment to prove that freedom and wealth—rather than science and cooperation—are the solutions to our planetary problems. Are the cries of the hungry and scared and the anguish of struggling farmers being heard above the political din? Meanwhile, as many of us face serious challenges, large corporations quietly go about their business playing both sides (food producers and the hungry) against the middle, and quality of life in the world’s richest nation continues to decline. . . .