Sustainability and Resilience in Agricultural Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Modern agricultural systems constitute complex multi-scale systems. Lately, they are facing multiple and complicated economic, social, environmental, and institutional challenges. As a result, achieving resilience and sustainability in these areas requires the use of multifaceted approaches and adaptations.

Resilience has been conceptualized as the ability of agricultural systems to cope with various challenges resulting from the continuous dynamics of intrinsic factors to the system (such as soil, water, nutrients, biodiversity), as well as extrinsic ones (such as climate, markets, policies). It basically describes the capacity of agricultural systems to adapt or transform on short- and medium-term bases in order to maintain their functions and continue their provision of private and public goods. Agricultural system sustainability can be described as the ability to remain economically viable in the long-term while conserving natural resources and ensuring social development. So, if resilience can be seen as short- and medium-term adaptation through various degrees of change, sustainability describes the capacity of agricultural systems to maintain a long-term viability under a wide range of conditions.

Accelerating the transition to sustainable and resilient agricultural systems requires multi-layered assessments of agricultural practices, risk management, profitability, farm demographics, and governance. Holistic responses are needed to achieve at integration and development across spatial and time scales. Therefore, it is necessary to identify new paths, future strategies, and even alternative systems able to achieving the requisite performances in sustainability and resilience. Long-term viable agricultural systems will also contribute to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (zero hunger, food security, and improved nutrition), while ensuring sustainable and responsible consumption and production patterns (SDG 12).

In this vein, the present Special Issue calls for articles, featuring diverse theoretical perspectives, innovative approaches, and new points of view in these areas, based on various research methodologies. It is a great opportunity for networking, communication, and new collaborations with scholars sharing the same thematic interests. 

In this Special Issue, original research articles, illustrative case studies, and reviews are welcome. Research areas include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Innovation for agricultural systems resilience and sustainability;
• Sustainable resource management;
• Organic agriculture;
• Enhanced productivity, profitability and value creation for resilient and sustainable farming;
• Agricultural product markets and supply chains;
• Animal welfare and biodiversity conservation;
• Climate change adaptation and mitigation;
• Organization and risk management in agricultural systems;
• Enabling and constraining resilience factors;
• Assessment of resilience attributes and capacities;
• Circular economy in agricultural systems;
• Farm generational renewal, workforce and social development;
• Contribution of Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) to sustainable and resilient agricultural systems;
• Policy support for sustainable and resilient agricultural systems.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Camelia Gavrilescu
Prof. Dr. Nicoleta Mateoc-Sirb
Prof. Dr. Alexandru Stratan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• sustainable rural development
• resilience
• integrated agricultural systems
• value chain integration
• agricultural policies
• environmental policies
• robustness
• adaptability
• transformability
• private and public goods
• climate change
• farm demographics