| name | nature-food |
| description | Use when targeting Nature Food or deciding whether a food-systems manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the food-systems-significance and transdisciplinary bar, evidence and reproducibility expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. |
Nature Food (nature-food)
Journal positioning
Nature Food is the Nature Portfolio journal for research, analysis, and opinion across
the entire food system — production, processing, distribution, consumption, nutrition,
and the environmental, economic, and social dimensions that connect them. Its defining
expectation is food-systems significance: a result that matters beyond a single crop,
process, or location and speaks to how food is produced or consumed sustainably and
healthily. A solid agronomy, food-chemistry, or nutrition result with no systems-level
significance is a poor fit, however rigorous. This skill is a fit / venue-selection /
re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before
submitting, re-check the live Nature Food submission guidance.
When to trigger
- The author names Nature Food and wants a fit/framing check for a food-systems paper.
- A specialist agronomy / food-science / nutrition / supply-chain result must be re-framed
into a food-systems-significance narrative.
- The author is choosing between Nature Food, a Nature Portfolio sibling, and a specialist
agriculture or food journal.
- The author needs Nature Food's desk-reject heuristics and a credible alternative route.
Scope & topic fit
- Sustainable food production: crops, livestock, aquaculture, and agroecology when the
contribution reaches system-level outcomes (yield–environment trade-offs, resilience).
- Food environment and nutrition: diets, food security, and health outcomes analyzed at
population or systems scale.
- Food processing, safety, and supply chains when the advance reframes a systems problem,
not just a unit operation.
- Environmental footprint of food: land, water, biodiversity, and greenhouse-gas analyses,
including life-cycle and modeling studies.
- Food policy, economics, and behavior with rigorous, generalizable evidence.
- Transdisciplinary syntheses that connect production, environment, and human health.
Method & evidence bar
- The central claim must carry food-systems significance, supported by evidence
appropriate to the method (field/experimental, observational, modeling, or analytical).
- Modeling and assessment studies must be transparent: stated assumptions, sensitivity
analysis, and uncertainty; scenario work must justify scenario choice.
- Empirical claims need adequate replication, controls, and representativeness; survey and
observational data need design and bias discussion.
- Cross-disciplinary papers must satisfy the evidence bar of each discipline they touch
(e.g., both agronomic and environmental-accounting rigor).
- Data and code availability are expected for the central analysis; follow Nature
reporting and data-availability policy.
Structure & house style
- Nature Portfolio format: a significance-forward abstract and an introduction that frames
the food-systems problem and the gap; re-check current article types (Article, Analysis,
Perspective, etc.) on the live guide.
- Main display items should carry the systems-level argument; specialist detail moves to
supplementary information.
- Methods are detailed and reproducible; reporting summary and data/code statements are
required per Nature policy.
- Framing should be accessible to a broad food-systems readership, not only one specialty.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.md and
../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the Nature Portfolio anchors, then
cite the current Nature Food page you checked.
- Search the live site for "Nature Food submission guidelines" and follow the current
version.
- Re-check article types, abstract/format expectations, the reporting summary, and the
data/code-availability policy.
- Confirm requirements for modeling transparency, life-cycle inventory disclosure, or
survey instruments if applicable.
- Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and
open-access terms.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions
win.
Pre-submission self-check
Common desk-reject triggers
- A rigorous but narrow agronomy, food-chemistry, or nutrition result with no systems-level
significance.
- Single-site, single-season, or unreplicated field/processing studies presented as broadly
generalizable.
- Opaque modeling or life-cycle assessment with no sensitivity/uncertainty analysis.
- A supply-chain or policy claim with weak, non-representative, or cherry-picked evidence.
- Framing pitched to one specialty community rather than the food-systems audience.
Re-routing decision
- Crop/agronomy field result without systems framing →
field-crops-research / agronomy-for-sustainable-development.
- Food composition/safety chemistry →
food-chemistry.
- Agroecosystem environment focus →
agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment.
- Broad earth/environment OA framing →
communications-earth-and-environment.
- Plant-science mechanism →
nature-plants / new-phytologist.
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Nature Food
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest food-systems topics>
[Systems significance] <why it matters beyond one crop/process/site>
[Method/evidence] <does the evidence + transparency clear Nature Food's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / reporting summary / data policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
