This issue of Agriculture and Human Values has two special features. The first are the remarks given by Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society president Doug Constance at the Society’s annual meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana, June 2008. The remainder of the articles in this issue are written in memory and honor of the work of Thomas A. Lyson, who passed away unexpectedly in December 2006 (see James 2007). This special issue was organized by Marygold B. Walsh-Dilley, Emme Edmunds and Max J. Pfeffer, all from the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University, the former academic home of Professor Lyson.

From the guest editors—Marygold Walsh-Dilley, Emme Edmunds and Max J. Pfeffer

This collection of papers brings together research inspired by the late Thomas Lyson’s work on civic engagement, rural development, and civic agriculture. It begins with an introductory piece by Gilbert W. Gillespie, Jr, “Introduction: Thomas A. Lyson: a biographical note”, which provides a biographical sketch of Tom Lyson’s life and works and emphasizes Lyson’s commitment both to teaching and to civic engagement in order to effect social change. Rick Welsh’s paper, “Farm and market structure, industrial regulation and rural community welfare: conceptual and methodological issues”, offers a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues related to the study of agriculture and presents a conceptual model to help guide future research in this area. Amy Guptill’s paper “Exploring the conventionalization of organic dairy: trends and counter-trends in upstate New York”, asks whether and how the boom in organic milk is pushing the organic milk value chain in upstate New York towards conventionalization. Guptill presents some support for the conventionalization hypothesis, but also finds that some producers’ responses represent greater engagement with the alternative, civic agriculture model. In “Alternative modes of governance: organic as civic engagement”, E. Melanie DuPuis and Sean Gillon introduce conceptual tools to help build understanding regarding how alternative markets are maintained through civic engagement and collaboration. In “Civic dietetics: opportunities for integrating civic agriculture concepts into dietetic practice”, Jennifer Wilkins extends Lyson’s civic agriculture framework into dietetics, and outlines ways in which the dietetics profession has been moving towards a more civic form of dietetics as well charts the constraints which limit the move in this direction. Mary Griffin, Kenneth Sobal, and Thomas A. Lyson’s paper, “An analysis of a community food waste stream”, presents a study that uses a systems approach to quantify food waste in one US county in 1998–1999. Lois Wright Morton and Chih Yuan Weng, in “Getting to better water quality outcomes: the promise and challenge of the citizen effect”, focus on water pollution. This study asks farmers in Iowa about their satisfaction with their own conservation measures, and explains difference in farmer perceptions by highlighting farmers’ personal beliefs as well as their social networks. In “Localizing control: Mendocino county and the ban on GMOs”, Marygold Walsh-Dilley uses a civic agriculture perspective to explore how local actors were able to limit the propagation of genetically modified organisms in one California county. Walsh-Dilley argues that localizing the issue of agricultural biotechnology in a grassroots movement was both the source of its success at the county level but also a barrier for a scaling-up of the movement to other areas.

Jessica M. Bagdonis, C. Clare Hinrichs, and Kai A. Schafft focus on farm-to-school programs in their paper “The emergence and framing of farm-to-school initiatives: civic engagement, health and local agriculture”. Drawing on comparative case studies of two emerging FTS initiatives in Pennsylvania, this article examines the role of internal and external “champions” in launching FTS programs and fostering civic engagement. Andrea R. Woodward’s paper, “Land grant university governance: an analysis of board composition and corporate interlocks”, examines the power structure that governs land-grant universities by presenting social and demographic information on 635 trustees at the 50 US land-grant universities established by the Morrill Act of 1862. The research found that land-grant governing boards are characterized by some degree of demographic homogeneity, but they are less corporately interconnected than their private university counterparts. Finally, in “Civic government or market-based governance? The limits of privatization for rural local governments” Mildred Warner outlines ways in which many rural communities in the US have been forced into market based governance and privatization of services, which erodes civic foundations. However, Warner argues, recent data show local governments moving to balance markets with civic concerns and giving increased attention to citizen interests in the service delivery process.