Organic Agriculture at the Heart of Agroecological Transition
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2021) | Viewed by 7683
Special Issue Editors
Interests: agrobiodiversity; agroecology; organic agriculture; field crops research; participatory research
Interests: participatory research; agrobiodiversity; dynamic management of crop diversity
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Agroecological transition is increasingly recognized as an imperative transformation of production and food systems towards better sustainability. From an agronomic point of view, the agroecological transition can manifest itself in the three subsequent stages of increasing input efficiency, input substitution, and system redesign. Whilst mainstream agriculture is highly engaged in innovation focusing on input efficiency and input substitution, system redesign is often overlooked and relegated to a niche. We advocate that organic agriculture can be a privileged pioneering space for research and innovation in systems redesign.
The principles of health, ecology, fairness, and care are the roots from which organic agriculture grows and develops. As such, organic agriculture calls to revitalize agronomy aspects, such as soil and field management, nutrient cycling, plant protection, crop local adaptation, that are otherwise dealt with through external inputs. By promoting biodiversity and giving greater consideration to the interactions in space and time between all living organisms (from micro-organisms to humans) within agro-ecosystems, organic agriculture lays the foundation for more sustainable systems.
In this Special Issue, we will welcome original research and/or reviews that will highlight the contribution of organic agriculture to inform the redesign of cropping systems based on global/holistic and ecological understanding of agroecosystems and fairer relationships in supply chains and food systems. Contributions that adopt a system approach, thus, encompassing multiple aspects of crop production as contextualized in local agroclimatic and socio-economic contexts, and resulting from participatory research methods are especially relevant.
Dr. Ambrogio Costanzo
Dr. Isabelle Goldringer
Dr. Véronique Chable
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. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.
Keywords
- organic agriculture
- agroecology
- agroecological transition
- cropping systems
- plant breeding
- agroecosystem
- agrobiodiversity
- crop diversification
- participatory research
- resilience
