Optimization of Resource Use for Productivity, Efficiency, and Sustainability in Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

A dynamic agricultural sector is crucial for any country’s economy and society. From an economic point of view, it is desirable that agricultural products can be supplied to the market under conditions which are favorable to the consumer and, at the same time, fair for the producers. The whole process is particularly challenging in the presence of increasingly strong requirements for competitiveness to be combined with the goals of sustainability, maintaining the balance between economic and environmental performance. In fact, in a context of climate change and global warming, it is necessary to reduce the sector's ecological footprint and for this, innovation and entrepreneurship can make important contributions. Technological advances are also decisive for improving the efficiency and productivity of farms, with special emphasis on the use of water, soil, and energy, without compromising food production.

In this perspective, this Special Issue aims to provide new insights about the efficient use of resources on farms for more sustainable and integrated agriculture.

Specifically, this Special Issue welcomes submissions on the following topics:

• Development of models for efficient use of resources, based, specifically, on DEA (data envelopment analysis), SFA (stochastic frontier analysis), and linear and mixed programming approaches;
• Identification of innovative and sustainable methodologies for farm planning;
• New contributions on agricultural entrepreneurship;
• New approaches to address the impacts of climate change on agriculture and reduce the sector's ecological footprint;
• Analysis of agricultural policies on the competitiveness of farms;
• Innovative ways to link agriculture with other economic sectors;
• Strategies to improve the participation of farmers in agri-food chains, namely, to bring them closer to final consumers;
• Decision support systems for agriculture;
• Socioeconomic aspects of innovative farming processes and protocol adoption;
• Integrated pesticide management and pesticide reduction strategies;
• Farming cooperatives and farm networks.

Dr. Vítor João Pereira Domingues Martinho
Prof. Dr. Paulo Reis Mourão
Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Georgantzis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.