Contrary to what is sometimes argued, the current planetary crises have not arisen from the COVID-19 pandemic, but are rooted in an unsustainable and unjust global economic system. It is time to learn from other ways of doing things, other cosmovisions and other values. That way, we can build a new social and natural contract, based on agroecology and feminist economics. A new issue of Farming Matters sheds light on ways to do so, as this editorial outlines.

The contemporary crises we now face stem from the overexploitation of nature for the benefit of individual profit. Industrial food is an important component of this model. The fallout of this is all too familiar: soil deterioration, biodiversity loss, deforestation, indigenous and other peoples’ rights violations, precarious rural livelihoods, unsafe working conditions, climate change, the double-edged sword of obesity and malnutrition and strong concentration of power.