As the Editor-in-Chief of Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (RAFS), I received an e-mail from Alex Avery, Director of Research at the Center for Global Food Issues on 10 September 2007. It read, ‘Dr. Doran, as a non-subscriber to RAFS I do not know where to submit the following set of misrepresentations and errors in the paper published in July in RAFS by Badgley et al. from the University of Michigan. Thus, I am sending it directly to you.’

In response, I stated that his ‘critique’ of the Badgley et al. paper entitled ‘Organic agriculture and the global food supply’, which was actually published in June (not July), would be presented as a Commentary critique together with an editorial response from the authors, and those involved in the peer-review process in an upcoming issue of RAFS.

The Editorial staff has decided to publish the Avery ‘critique’ as a Commentary in the Journal with responses from the authors, Catherine Badgley and her co-authors, and William Liebhardt, who were the main subjects of Avery's criticism. Publication of the Commentary and responses is done in the interest of fair play and a desire to provide all viewpoints on the important issue of meeting future food and resource needs as indicated by the Editorial in the June, Vol. 22(2), issue of RAFS entitled ‘Balancing food, environmental, and resource needs’.

In that Editorial, a paraphrased quote has particular relevance to the current debate: ‘Ultimate success in alleviating hunger, malnutrition, poverty and global resource degradation in the technically complex 21st Century will not come solely from intensive input or organic agriculture but rather a hybridization of both approaches.’ It is my hope that we can move forward as a civilization as we LISTEN and LEARN from each other with the primary goal of achieving a more sustainable and equitable agriculture, whatever the approach taken.