Dear Colleagues,

As we write these lines, climate change is massively altering the dynamics and biomechanisms behind natural ecosystems, which are collapsing under an increasing human pressure resulting in pollution of air, water, and soil and unsustainable exploitation of nonrenewable natural and abiotic resources. Meanwhile, the global population is growing exponentially, together with the need to feed it. The agrifood industry, so tied to climate and dependent on natural ecosystems, is growing and expanding too to fulfill such a need.

This growth, blindly driven by profit, makes the food supply chain (FSC) processes (i.e., from agricultural phases to pretreating, from food processing to packing, including storage, transportation, waste management, and byproduct valorization) prime contributors to natural systems contamination, greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions, and to climate change.  

There is an urgent need to provide engineering solutions, tools, and technologies that support the strategic design, tactical planning, and operational control of agrifood supply chain processes toward their sustainability and resilience.

This Special Issue (SI), entitled “Sustainable Agri-Food Supply Chains: Advanced Engineering Strategies for Climate Change Mitigation”, aims at collecting emerging models, methods, support-decision tools but also advanced technology able to incorporate environmental sustainability targets in the design and management and control of FSC ecosystems. Articles are expected to cover the entire chain from growers to consumers, using environmental and economic sustainability as the primary lenses of assessment. Whilst relevant papers focusing on quantitative predictive and prescriptive methodologies will be considered, preference will be given to those contributions able to provide empirical evidence and practical implications of the environmental benefits obtained in real-world food industry cases.

The authors of papers selected by the Scientific Committee of the 6th International Conference on Food and wine Supply Chain (8–11 June 2020, Bologna, Italy; https://eventi.unibo.it/6th-internationalconferencefoodsupplychain-bologna2020 ) will be encouraged to resubmit to this SI with a favorable publishing policy.

All papers will subject to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Dr. Riccardo Accorsi
Prof. Riccardo Manzini
Prof. Rene J. Villalobos
Dr. Marco Bortolini
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability 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 2400 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.

• Land-use planning and agricultural systems design
• Planning tools to aid penetration of renewables in FSC
• Resources optimization and management in primary growing/farming
• Remote sensing and machine learning in agriculture
• Optimization in sustainable food supply chain operations management
• Simulation techniques applied to agricultural, processing, conservation, and distribution phases
• Emerging energy-effective technology in food processing
• Food production scheduling and innovative facility/equipment design
• Food packaging network design and management strategies
• Climate-driven decision-making for food storage and distribution management
• Low-carbon food logistics and distribution
• Decision-support platform for low carbon FSC design and planning
• Internet-of-Things in FSC management and control
• Predictive and prescriptive methods in food safety/quality management
• Zero-waste closed-loop chain planning and by-products valorization