Dear RC40 and IRSA friends,

It has been a long time since the IRSA and ISA congresses in Toronto. I hope you are all well. Atakan Buke, a younger member of the RC40Executive and I decided to organize a round table to assess the current state of agrifood studies at the ISA Forum in Rabat 2025.

RC40 was a school away from school for many of us over the years.  Nearly 50 years have passed since the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (SAF) was established as an Ad Hoc Group at the 9th ISA World Congress in 1978.

The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (IJSAF) has been published since 1991.  IJSAF has made significant contributions to analyzing agrifood systems through various critical frameworks, concepts, and methodologies.

Some of our old friends, such as Bill Friedland, Larry Busch or Fred Buttell, are no longer with us. Others have retired or missed recent conferences. The debates we had two decades ago have changed. While new issues such as digital agriculture, cultivated meat or artificial intelligence emerge, older debates about the agrarian question, globalization, financialization, and genetic engineering became even more complicated. Rural development and rural poverty seemed to be forgotten issues. As wars destroy the lives and livelihoods of people around the global south, rural-urban migration gained new meanings.

The hybrid round table (both by Zoom and in person) we are organizing will reflect on the past and discuss future trajectories of RC40 and the field of critical agrifood studies.

We developed a questionnaire to gather reflections from past and current members and rural sociologists affiliated with RC40 at one time or another. This survey aims to gather insights to understand the key challenges and research directions for critical agrifood studies in the 21st century. The results from this questionnaire will be presented at the roundtable.

Your input will help shape future research priorities, agendas, and the organizational development of RC40.
[Click here to participate in the survey]

We sincerely appreciate your time and contributions. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or need assistance accessing the survey.

I am sending this message to friends from my mailing list. Please share this message with others who might be interested or send me their email addresses so we can contact them. We wish you a happy, healthy, and peaceful new year.

Peace,

Mustafa Koc

Mustafa Koc

Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology

Centre for Studies in Food Security

Toronto Metropolitan University