In this issue, several authors indicate the causes of poverty in their area of work. For example Barkin (p.41) points at the processes of cultural oppression and agricultural modernisation that affected the indigenous peoples in rural Mexico; Satheesh (p.20) presents the influence of the Public Distribution System of food aid in rural India, which affected the traditional agricultural system and food sovereignty. Strohalm and Reijntjes (p.14) also point to the accumulation of money, and thus of power in the hands of a small group of people, as one of the causes of poverty. This leaves less powerful people and countries indebted