Food production, essential to life, is also today a major contributor to climate change. In this course, we examine farming and food through the rubric of agroecology, an approach that integrates biological, cultural, and historical factors to develop understandings of farming and food history as well as agriculture’s multiple contemporary forms, industrial and non-industrial. We will cover basic aspects of crop evolution and growth, soil, water, and nutrients, with a special focus on the historical global diversity of farming systems, especially in terms of potential alternatives to industrial agriculture. This review forms the foundation for a broader consideration of the impacts of food systems on the planet, and ways to address challenges of climate change, food security, and food sovereignty.