Special Issue "Biosystems Engineering - Strategies for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanics"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sabina Iole Giuseppina Failla
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, Via S.Sofia 100, 95123 Catania, Italy
Interests: soil conservation tillage; labour and energy requirement in agricultural; plant protection with sprayers in greenhouse and open field; mechanical distribution of natural arthropods in greenhouse and in open field; biomass and bioenergy
Dr. Elio Romano
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Council for Agricultural Research, Economics-Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing, CREA-IT, 24047 Treviglio Bergamo, Italy
Interests: precision agriculture; image analysis; environmental impact; energy consumption
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Simone Bergonzoli
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Council for Agricultural Research, Economics-Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing, CREA-IT, 24047 Treviglio Bergamo, Italy
Interests: agricultural engineering; precision agriculture; biomass collection
Prof. Giampaolo Schillaci
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Interests: safety and ergonomics in agriculture (open field and packing houses); labour and energy requirement in agricultural; robotic and image analysis; mechanization of pest protection crop on field and in greenhouses; remote-controlled vehicle

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable mechanization plays an increasingly essential role to ensure that agricultural production is not only more environmentally less impacting but is economically affordable, adaptable to local conditions, and resilient in respect to climate changes.

As stated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, sustainable mechanization considers technological, economic, social, environmental and cultural aspects when contributing to the sustainable development of the food and agricultural sector. It is applied to agricultural land preparation, supports timely seeding and planting, weed control, integrated pest management, precise fertilizer application, harvesting, preparation for storage, and value addition operations along the food supply chain in terms of on-farm processing, transport and marketing.

The pressure of the markets towards higher productions demand and of better quality on the one hand and the emergence of new and complicated phenomena such as climate change, degradation of soils, water and air, precariousness of socio-economic systems on the other hand would bring the agricultural systems into a continuous choice between the increase in external inputs and environmental impact.

Agriculture machines and practices and should be finalized to reducing long term depletion of natural resources and to ensure their conservation by maintaining a constant high level of production at the same time.

The technological innovations available in modern agricultural mechanization can play an important role in addressing both the need for an increase in production in quantity and quality, and a efficient use of inputs also improving quality and timing of work, welfare and safety for operators and reducing energy use, carbon and water footprint, and greenhouse gases emissions.

In this special issue, we invite you to present the results of research in main topics relating to the possibility of agricultural production to make use of practices and machines able to respect the use of the soil and its issues (i.e. erosion, salinization, compaction, reduction of organic matter), able to reduce water and air pollution through a more precision use of chemical and energy inputs, able to save safety, health and welfare of workers as well as of animal welfare.

Particular attention will be paid to issues relating to:

  • Evaluation of strategies, practices and machines for a sustainable Agricultural Mechanics;
  • Diffusion of new technologies, such as digital farming;
  • Development of new organic and conservative agriculture machines;
  • Assessment of the environmental and economic benefits coming from the adoption of new technologies in agricultural mechanization;
  • Modeling of information for the projection of the sustainable effect;
  • Economic evaluation of the inclusion of new technologies in agricultural fleet;
  • High-intensity cultivation and livestock systems and evaluation of sustainability indicators;
  • Assessment of the impact of increasing agricultural mechanization on natural resources in developing and developed countries.

Dr. Sabina Failla
Dr. Elio Romano
Dr. Simone Bergonzoli
Prof. Giampaolo Schillaci
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. 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

  • Sustainable mechanization
  • Soil conservation practices
  • Organic agriculture
  • Carbon and water footprint
  • Precision agriculture
  • Digital farming
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Advanced machinery
  • Precision livestock farming
  • Safety and ergonomic issues

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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