| name | agsy-literature-positioning |
| description | Use when positioning an Agricultural Systems (AgSy) manuscript against the literature so it reads as a systems contribution. AgSy readers span agronomy, modelling, livestock, economics, environment, and food-system science, so the paper must engage the systems and modelling literatures they expect — not only one subfield. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the lit review. |
Literature Positioning (agsy-literature-positioning)
AgSy is read by a systems-science audience that spans crop and livestock modelling, whole-farm and
bio-economic analysis, sustainability assessment, and food-system science. Positioning is therefore not
throat-clearing — the paper must show it advances the systems and modelling conversation, not just
add another data point to one subfield.
When to trigger
- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "contribution" paragraph
- A reviewer said you "ignored the relevant modelling work" or "don't engage the systems debate"
- Your agronomic or model results are solid but the framing reads as single-discipline
- You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest prior systems studies / models
How AgSy wants the literature engaged
- Engage the systems debate, not a citation pile. Identify the open systems question — an
unresolved trade-off, a contested mechanism, a model limitation, a scaling gap — that your paper
addresses. Cite the works that define it.
- Two literatures at once. The domain literature (the crop/livestock/farm/food system you
study) and the methods literature (the model family, calibration/evaluation, sensitivity,
trade-off analysis). AgSy reviewers expect both.
- Locate your model among existing models. Why this model and not the standard alternatives
(APSIM/DSSAT/STICS, whole-farm/bio-economic, ABM, integrated assessment)? What does yours add?
- Name the gap precisely. Not "little is known" — say what is mismodelled, untested across scales,
or missing a trade-off, and why resolving it advances systems understanding.
- Pre-empt the obvious objection. Acknowledge the strongest rival explanation or competing model
and say how your design/evaluation adjudicates it (hand off to
agsy-data-and-model-evaluation).
Cross-system engagement (a distinctive AgSy demand)
| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|---|
| a crop-model application | the whole-farm / trade-off literature it feeds into |
| a whole-farm or bio-economic study | the process-model and the economic/decision literatures |
| a landscape/regional analysis | the aggregation/emergence and land-use-competition literature |
| a food-system study | the production, environment, and policy literatures it connects |
Worked micro-example: locating one contribution (illustrative)
A bioeconomic study of climate adaptation positions itself in two literatures at once:
- Domain: mixed crop–livestock adaptation studies, citing the works that frame the margin–environment
trade-off as unresolved at farm scale.
- Methods: whole-farm bioeconomic modelling, naming why this model is chosen over a crop-only
simulator (it represents the herd–manure–rotation feedback the trade-off depends on).
- Gap, stated precisely: prior models hold feed price exogenous and so cannot show how price shocks
reshape land use — not "little is known."
- Strongest rival: a regional integrated-assessment paper, whose scale hides the farm-level feedback
this study isolates and evaluates.
Referee pushback → the AgSy-specific fix
- "You ignored the relevant modelling work." → Add the methods literature (model family, calibration,
trade-off analysis), not just the domain papers.
- "The contribution reads as incremental." → Name the specific systems gap (a mismodelled interaction,
an untested scale) your design closes.
Anti-patterns
- A "literature dump" with no organizing systems question
- Engaging only the agronomy literature and ignoring the modelling/evaluation literature (or vice versa)
- Not situating your model among the standard model families
- Strawmanning prior models, or hiding the closest competing study
- Claiming "first to model" when the contribution is incremental
Positioning pass for Agricultural Systems
Run this as a concrete capability pass. First lock the system boundary, actor decision, model/data linkage, and sustainability or food-security tradeoff; then test whether the manuscript addresses agricultural-systems reviewers who expect crop, farm, value-chain, environment, and policy components to be connected rather than listed.
- Primary move: Build a three-column map: incumbent conversation, unresolved tension, and this manuscript's delta; include one sibling-venue omission that would make a referee doubt the fit.
- Decision ledger: return
claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
- Sibling comparison: compare against Field Crops Research for plot-level agronomy, Global Food Security for policy synthesis, Agricultural Economics for economics-first work; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
- Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open
resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.
Output format
【Systems debate】the open trade-off / mechanism / scaling / model gap
【Key works】the 3-6 that define it (domain + methods)
【Model landscape】where your model sits among alternatives
【Gap】what is mismodelled / untested across scales / missing a trade-off
【Move】how this paper changes the systems conversation
【Strongest rival】and how evaluation will adjudicate it
【Next】agsy-systems-framing-and-modeling
Supplementary resources
