Recycling of Resources and Reducing the Environmental Footprint in Small Rural and Urban Farms

Dear Colleagues,

Moving from the current perception of a world with endless resources to seeing a world with limited resources is a vital step in applying the necessary measures to rectify the enormous damage expected from the environmental crisis. An additional resource-related challenge is overcoming the contrast between food security (which necessitates a high yield of food production) and environmental soundness with an emphasis on climate change (lowering the environmental burden caused by excessive agricultural systems). Agriculture is an anthropogenic activity that has an extensive impact on climate change, on one the hand, but is essential for the survival of humanity on the other. Small farms are still very abundant around the world and especially in underdeveloped rural areas. While farms with less than 10 ha take ~20% of the agricultural area, they account for ~90% of the farmers. Modern large farms are being constantly upgraded, but small rural farms are still untapped areas for improvement, especially when it comes to sustainable resource management. Moreover, the rapid population movement from the countryside to the cities (e.g., urbanization) is creating new agricultural opportunities in the fast-growing area of urban agriculture. For this Special Issue, we invite researchers to share their studies and views about new ways to recycle resources and reduce the environmental footprint in small rural and urban farms. The Special Issue will focus on ways to manage the inputs and outputs of resources in a sustainable manner. The issue will explore as wide a range of research and views about this topic as possible. These can include, for example, the following:

• Holistic view of resources, including lifecycle assessments of small or urban farms resources, agricultural/food waste management in small and urban farms, policies, energy efficiency, carbon footprint reduction, and circular economics.
• Specific solutions such as composting, biochars, livestock, and especially bovine manure management, sustainable integrated pest management, and more.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, the management of local resources is especially important for the resilience of the food supply chain. This Special Issue will shed light on the future ways to convert existing and future small and urban farms into hubs of agricultural sustainability

Dr. Yigal Achmon
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 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.

• urban farming
• sustainable agriculture
• agricultural waste management
• carbon footprint
• resource management