Today, due to globalization and the development of technology, there is a devaluation of public libraries and a privatization of knowledge.

While it is true that we now have access to electronic information, more specific, specialized and historical ones come with a cost. Furthermore, much knowledge generated in the past hasn’t been transcribed electronically, so information has been lost.

For this reason, a great effort is being made today to rescue, summarize and classify a series of documents related to the agro-food theme – elaborated individually and jointly – to make them electronically available.

This work reveals a period of several years of work and analysis of the subject. They are writings and reports that range from investigations to evaluations; outcome of innumerable visits on the field, surveys and interviews, on-site verifications of the projects; diagnostics; essays; Work documents; debates in workshops and seminars; exchanges of ideas and experiences; points of encounter and disagreement; controversies; readings in which several national and international researchers participated.

It is based on the principle that knowledge is a public good, a common good and not a private good. Therefore, the intention is that any reader can access this information freely, openly and free of cost.

Knowledge, findings, doubts, and expositions must be rescued from oblivion and spread so that history does not forget them, so that university students and current professionals know the path traveled and understand where we have arrived in the study of agrifood issue, how and who did it. All in order to continue with this task, identify new challenges and face them better in the 21st century.

It also allows us to remember … what we proposed … in what we believed … in what we have evolved … our mistakes … all we have been through … and also reaffirm that we were not wrong in several approaches and that today history and time prove us right.

To sum up… this is an invitation to go through the footprint we left in the agri-food question … .. To re-walk it… with hope.