This course covers the major social, political, and economic aspects of the U.S. agricultural system, both as it exists today as well as its historical development. After consideration of agricultural systems in general, we explore some of the key historical forces that have made U.S. agriculture what it is today and the major role of the federal government, both past and present. This includes an explicit focus on policy, power, and the role that systems of oppression (e.g., slavery and racism, genocide of Indigenous peoples) have played and continue to play in determining who farms, who labors, and who has access to agricultural resources. The final portion of the course focuses on the people who grow and harvest our food, the communities in which they live and work, and the development of alternative food systems (i.e., local and regional) as potential mechanisms to transform relationships between agriculture and society.