Over the last decade there has been renewed interest in food security and the state of the global food system. Population growth, climate change and food price spikes have combined to focus new attention on the technologies and institutions that underpin the production and consumption of food that is varied, nutritious and safe.

1. Knowledge politics in development-oriented agronomy (Jens Andersson, James Sumberg, John Thompson and Ken Giller) 2. 'Agents without principals': configuration and outcomes of agenda setting for public agricultural research in Africa (George Okongo and Laurens Klerkx) 3. Contested agronomy and the movement of agricultural technology: The situating and desituating of technological packages (Dominic Glover, Jean-Philippe Venot and Harro Maat) 4. Crops in context: negotiating traditional and formal institutions in local seed systems of maize and sorghum (Ola T. Westengen) 5. GM crops 'for Africa': examining contestation and knowledge politics in the Kenyan biosafety debate (Stephen Whitfield) 6. The sweet smell of 'success': contesting biofortification strategies to address malnutrition in Tanzania (Sheila Rao and Chris Huggins) 7. Systems research in the CGIAR as a multi-dimensional arena of struggle (Cees Leeuwis) 8. When the solution became a problem: strategies in the reform of agricultural extension in Uganda (Patience B. Rwamigisa, Paul Kibwika, Frank B. Matsiko, Margaret N. Mangheni and Regina Birner) 9. One step forward, two steps back in farmer knowledge exchange: 'scaling-up' as Fordist replication in drag (William G. Moseley) 10. South-South cooperation, third world solidarity and technocentric development: China and Brazil in Africa (Kojo Amanor) 11. Yields of dreams: marching west and the politics of scientific knowledge in the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) (Ryan Nehring) 12. Beyond contested agronomy (Ken Giller, Jens Andersson, John Thompson and James Sumberg)