Special Issue "CERNAS – Current Evolution and Research Novelty in Agricultural Sustainability"

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Raquel P. F. Guiné
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CERNAS Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal
Interests: sustainable agriculture; family farming; organic farming; sustainable food chains
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. António Dinis Ferreira
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CERNAS Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: wildfires; sustainable land management; conservation of natural resources
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. António Moitinho Rodrigues
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CERNAS Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal
Interests: extensive and organic livestock farming; freshwater fish farming; sustainable agriculture; sustainable food chains

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Climate changes pose overwhelming impacts on primary production and, consequently, on agricultural and animal farming. Additionally, at present, agriculture still depends strongly on fossil fuels both for energy and production factors such as synthetized inorganic fertilizers and harmful chemicals such as pesticides.

The need to feed the growing world population poses many challenges. The need to reduce environmental impacts to a minimum, maintain healthy ecosystems, and improve soil microbiota are central to ensuring a promising future for coming generations. Livestock production under cover crop systems helps to alleviate compaction so that oxygen and water can sufficiently flow in the soil, adds organic matter, and helps hold soil in place, reducing crusting and protecting against erosion. The use of organic plant production practices allied to the control of substances used in agriculture also decisively contributes to alleviate the pressure on ecosystems.

Some of the goals of this new decade are to use enhanced sustainable productive methodologies, to improve the input/output ratios of primary production, to reduce the environmental impacts, and to rely on new innovative technologies.

Prof. Dr. Raquel P. F. Guine
Prof. Dr. António Dinis Ferreira
Prof. Dr. António Moitinho Rodrigues
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 papers will be 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 1800 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

  • sustainable agriculture
  • family farming
  • organic farming
  • sustainable food chain
  • wildfires
  • sustainable land management
  • conservation of natural resources
  • extensive and organic livestock farming
  • freshwater fish farming
  • urban agriculture

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

Article
Chemical and Physical Properties of Some Hazelnut Varieties Grown in Portugal
Agronomy 2021, 11(8), 1476; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11081476 - 25 Jul 2021
Viewed by 449
Abstract
Hazelnuts are one of the most appreciated nuts worldwide due to their unique organoleptic and nutritional characteristics. The present work intended to analyse several physical and chemical properties of different hazelnut varieties grown in Portugal, namely Tonda de Giffoni, Grada de Viseu, Segorbe, [...] Read more.
Hazelnuts are one of the most appreciated nuts worldwide due to their unique organoleptic and nutritional characteristics. The present work intended to analyse several physical and chemical properties of different hazelnut varieties grown in Portugal, namely Tonda de Giffoni, Grada de Viseu, Segorbe, Longa de Espanha, Butler, Gunslebert, and Negreta. In general, the results revealed statistically significant differences between the varieties under study. The Gunslebert had more elongated hazelnuts and with heavier shelled fruits, while the kernels of the Grada de Viseu revealed to be heavier. Grada de Viseu was harder in the shell, Gunslebert had a harder core, and Segorbe was more resistant to fracture. Fat was the more representative component for all varieties and in some cases the values of moisture and water activity were over the recommended amount (≥0.62). Tonda de Giffoni was the variety with the highest induction time, indicating the highest oxidation stability. Moreover, discriminant analysis revealed that the variables more important to distinguish the varieties were protein (λ = 0.007) and water activity (λ = 0.010). The results of this study help to better understand the differences between some hazelnut varieties that are cultivated in Portugal, which gives important hints for all players in the hazelnut sector. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

Review
Integrated-Smart Agriculture: Contexts and Assumptions for a Broader Concept
Agronomy 2021, 11(8), 1568; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11081568 - 05 Aug 2021
Viewed by 346
Abstract
The innovative technologies developed in the different fields of science (nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, etc.) opened new and infinite possibilities for the several stakeholders that carry out their activities in the different economic sectors. For agriculture, these new approaches are particularly relevant [...] Read more.
The innovative technologies developed in the different fields of science (nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, etc.) opened new and infinite possibilities for the several stakeholders that carry out their activities in the different economic sectors. For agriculture, these new approaches are particularly relevant and may bring interesting contributions, considering the specificities of the sector, often dealing with contexts of land abandonment and narrow profit margins. Nonetheless, the question in these unstopped evolutions is about the interlinkages with sustainability. In this context, the objectives of this study are to highlight the main insights from the available scientific literature about the interrelationships between the new trends in the agriculture and the sustainability. To achieve these aims, a search on the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) and Scopus databases was carried out, on 15 May 2021, for the topics ‘smart agriculture’ and ‘sustainability’. A total of 231 documents (102 from WoS and 129 from Scopus) were obtained, remaining 155 documents after removing the duplicated, which were surveyed through systematic review following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach. As main insights, the concerns of the researchers with the impacts on the sustainability from the transformations in the farming organization are highlighted. On the other hand, it was shown the relevance and the new opportunities, including in terms of food supply, arising from the precision agriculture, agricultural intelligence, vertical/urban farming, circular economy, internet of things, and crowdfarming. We suggest the new and wider concept of ‘integrated-smart agriculture’, better than ‘climate-smart agriculture’. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Integrated-smart agriculture: Contexts and assumptions for a broader concept
Authors: Vítor Martinho
Affiliation: Polytechnic Institute of Viseu
Abstract: The agricultural sector suffered several changes over the last centuries accompanying the evolution of the transformations verified in the organization of the societies, economies and in the technological progress. In fact, the innovative technologies developed in the different fields of science (nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, etc) opened new and infinite possibilities for the several stakeholders that carry out their activities in the different economic sectors. For agriculture, these new approaches are particularly relevant and may bring interesting contributions, considering the specificities of the sector, often dealing with contexts of land abandonment and narrow profit margins. Nonetheless, the question in these unstopped evolutions is about the interlinkages with sustainability. In this context, the objectives of this study are to high-light the main insights from the available scientific literature about the interrelationships between the new trends in the agriculture and the sustainability. To achieve these aims, a search on the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) and Scopus databases was carried out, on 15 may 2021, for the topics “smart agriculture” and “sustainability”. A total of 231 documents (102 from WoS and 129 from Scopus) were obtained, remaining 155 documents after removing the duplicated, which were surveyed through systematic review following the PRISMA approach. As main insights, are highlighted the concerns of the researchers with the impacts on the sustainability from the trans-formations in the farming organization. On the other hand, it was shown the relevance and the new opportunities, including in terms of food supply, arising from the precision agriculture, agri-cultural intelligence, vertical/urban farming, circular economy, internet of things and crowd-farming. We suggest the new and wider concept of “integrated-smart agriculture”, better than “climate-smart agriculture”.

Title: Chemical and physical properties of some hazelnut varieties grown in Portugal
Authors: Ana Cristina Ferrão; Paula M. R. Correia
Affiliation: CERNAS-IPV Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, 3504-510 Viseu, Portugal
Abstract: Hazelnuts are one of the most appreciated nuts worldwide, due to their unique organoleptic and nutritional characteristics. The present work in-tended to analyse several physical and chemical properties of different hazelnut varieties grown in Portugal, namely Tonda de Giffoni, Grada de Viseu, Segorbe, Longa de Espanha, Butler, Gunslebert and Negreta. In general, the results re-vealed statistically significant differences between the varieties under study. The variety Guns-lebert had more elongated hazelnuts and with heavier shelled fruits, while the kernels of variety Grada de Viseu revealed to be heavier. Grada was harder in the shell, Gunslebert had a harder core and Segorbe was more resistant to fracture. Fat was the more representative component for all varieties, and in some cases the values of moisture and water activity were over the recom-mended (≥ 0.62). Tonda was the variety with the highest induction time, which means a highest oxidation stability. Moreover, discriminant analysis revealed that the variables more important to distinguish the varieties were protein (λ = 0.007) and water activity (λ = 0.010). This work al-lowed to understand the differences between some hazelnut varieties that are cultivated in Por-tugal, which gives important hints for all players in the hazelnut sector.

Back to TopTop