Our journal, with the word “agroecology” in the title, is an indication that the field of agroecology has emerged as an important approach for moving food and farming systems toward sustainability. We have become a site for the publication of participatory, action-oriented, and transdisciplinary research that has a goal of linking science, practice, and the social change process needed to design, test, and implement the alternative vision many of us hold for the food systems of the future. But where did agroecology come from? How did it develop, what were the issues it was addressing, and how far has it come? This special issue sheds light on these questions for a particular part of the world where a movement began several decades ago, and has spread to many other countries from its roots in Spain and Latin America