Special Issue "Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ali Mohammadi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Engineering and Chemical Sciences, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Interests: sustainability assessment; biochar and bioenergy; cropping systems; waste management; bioeconomics
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global population increase is placing demands on food supply and increasing waste streams. The agricultural activities as the basic step and then the food industry are responsible for addressing these demands, while the entire production and supply chain including field practices, transport, processing, and waste disposal play a substantial role in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and in toxic emissions to soil and water bodies. To achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the agri-food industry and the supply chain must be sustainably developed through alternative solutions and/or optimization of the current scenarios, despite all the constraints and challenges. This significantly leads towards less environmental pollution and improved human health, and helps to preserve and improve the quality of the ecosystem.

However, the performance of these alternative solutions and optimized scenarios needs to be scrutinized, mainly from environmental, energetic, economic, and social perspectives.

This Special Issue "Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems" aims to fill the gaps in the scientific literature concerning this crucial area as much as possible, to highlight the topic’s importance, and to provide a platform for the dissemination of state-of-the-art advances in this field. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Development of life-cycle assessment models to quantify the sustainability of alternative and novel methods in agricultural and food production systems;
  • Modelling the sustainability of novel technologies for managing agricultural residues and food waste by converting them into value products;
  • Optimization of the current scenarios in the agri-food industry from environment and economic perspectives;
  • Economic feasibility of implementing novel technical solutions in the agri-food processes;
  • Modeling and optimization of energy and exergy indicators in cropping and food engineering systems through combined system analysis tools;
  • Adoption of new technologies in the agri-food industry and their social sustainability.

Dr. Ali Mohammadi
Guest Editor

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. 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 1900 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

  • life cycle assessment
  • social-economic impact
  • farming systems
  • food processing
  • agricultural residues
  • sustainable development

Published Papers (3 papers)

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

Research

Jump to: Review

Article
Assessing the Direct Resource Requirements of Urban Horticulture in the United Kingdom: A Citizen Science Approach
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2628; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052628 - 01 Mar 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 8318
Abstract
Interest in urban food production is growing; recent research has highlighted its potential to increase food security and reduce the environmental impact of food production. However, resource demands of urban horticulture are poorly understood. Here, we use allotment gardens in the United Kingdom [...] Read more.
Interest in urban food production is growing; recent research has highlighted its potential to increase food security and reduce the environmental impact of food production. However, resource demands of urban horticulture are poorly understood. Here, we use allotment gardens in the United Kingdom to investigate resource demands of urban horticultural production across the country. We conducted a nationwide citizen science project using year-long allotment ‘diaries’ with allotment gardeners (n = 163). We analysed a variety of resources: transportation; time; water use; inputs of compost, manure and topsoil; and inputs of fertilisers, pest control and weed control. We found that, overall, an allotment demands 87 annual visits, travelling 139 km to and from the plot; 7 fertiliser additions; 4 pest control additions; and 2 weed control additions. On average, each kilogram of food produced used 0.4 hours’ labour, 16.9 L of water, 0.2 L of topsoil, 2.2 L of manure, and 1.9 L of compost. As interest in urban horticultural production grows, and policy makers build urban horticultural spaces into future sustainable cities, it is of key importance that this is carried out in a way that minimises resource requirements, and we demonstrate here that avenues exist for the diversion of municipal compostable waste and household-level city food waste for this purpose. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Article
Development and Evaluation of Combined Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System and Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm in Energy, Economic and Environmental Life Cycle Assessments of Oilseed Production
Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 290; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010290 - 30 Dec 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 716
Abstract
Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using a combined technique involving an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). Data were collected from canola farming enterprises in the Mazandaran province of Iran and were [...] Read more.
Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using a combined technique involving an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). Data were collected from canola farming enterprises in the Mazandaran province of Iran and were used to test the application of the combined modeling algorithms. Life cycle assessment (LCA) for one ha functional unit of canola production from cradle to farm gate was conducted in order to evaluate the impacts of energy, materials used, and their environmental emissions. MOGA was applied to maximize the output energy and benefit-cost ratio, and to minimize environmental emissions. The combined ANFIS–MOGA technique resulted in a 6.2% increase in energy output, a 144% rise in the benefit-cost ratio, and a 19.8% reduction in environmental emissions from the current canola production system in the studied region. A comparison of ANFIS–MOGA with the data envelopment analysis approach was also conducted and the results established that the former is a better system than the latter because of its ability to generate optimum conditions that allow for the assessment of a combination of parameters such as energy, economic, and environmental impacts of agricultural production systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

Review
Agrometeorological Requirements of Maize Crop Phenology for Sustainable Cropping—A Historical Review for Romania
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7719; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147719 - 10 Jul 2021
Viewed by 481
Abstract
Identifying regional variations and agronomical records can turn into a function of magnitude and timing for sustainable maize production. The crop characteristics are directly related with the temperature and precipitation from the growing season. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to [...] Read more.
Identifying regional variations and agronomical records can turn into a function of magnitude and timing for sustainable maize production. The crop characteristics are directly related with the temperature and precipitation from the growing season. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to highlight maize crop requirements from the most suggestive records from Romania. A literature search was performed based on keywords related to both maize crop and agrometeorological requirements. After the evaluation of the temperature requirements on maize phenology’s principal stages, some inconsistencies were identified. These are related to the leaf development stage and the development of the fruit stage, where the minimum temperature interval overlaps with the optimum. A wide variety of assessments were also made, taking into account mainly the monthly temperature and precipitation requirements. The number of principal growth stages assessed differed greatly from one source to another. The growth degree days has been incoherently expressed and calculated, and these details must be taken into account for developing further models. The results regarding phenology aim to propose the setting up of comparable records at a regional (PannEx area) and global scale. This review will help to develop new climate projections in Romania in the climate change context through the project Agroclim. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop