| name | agronomy-for-sustainable-development |
| description | Use when targeting Agronomy for Sustainable Development or deciding whether an agronomy / farming-systems manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the explicit-and-evidenced sustainability-contribution bar, evidence and data-reporting expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. |
Agronomy for Sustainable Development (agronomy-for-sustainable-development)
Journal positioning
Agronomy for Sustainable Development (ASD), published by Springer, is an agronomy journal
defined by an explicit sustainability framing: cropping and farming systems studied
because, and insofar as, they advance the sustainability of agriculture — environmental,
economic, and social. It publishes field research alongside reviews and meta-analyses, but in
every case the sustainability contribution must be explicit and evidenced, not asserted in
the abstract and dropped thereafter. A competent agronomy study whose only contribution is a
yield or management result, with sustainability mentioned as decoration, is a poor fit. 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 ASD author guidance.
When to trigger
- The author names ASD and wants a fit/framing check for a sustainability-oriented agronomy or
farming-systems paper.
- An agronomy result must be re-framed so its sustainability contribution is explicit,
measured, and load-bearing rather than rhetorical.
- The author is planning a review or meta-analysis of sustainable cropping/farming systems and
needs the venue's synthesis bar.
- The author is choosing between ASD,
field-crops-research, and
agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment.
Scope & topic fit
- Cropping and farming systems designed or evaluated for sustainability: diversification,
conservation agriculture, agroecology, organic and integrated systems.
- Resource-use efficiency and input reduction (nutrients, water, pesticides, energy) tied to
sustainability outcomes and trade-offs.
- Soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem-service outcomes of agronomic management framed for
sustainability.
- Climate-change adaptation and mitigation in agronomic systems, including carbon and GHG
considerations.
- Reviews and meta-analyses that synthesize evidence on sustainable practices across studies
and regions.
- Socio-economic and multi-criteria assessments of farming systems where they evidence the
sustainability contribution.
Method & evidence bar
- The sustainability contribution must be explicit and evidenced: the relevant
environmental, economic, and/or social dimension is measured or analyzed, with trade-offs
acknowledged, not asserted.
- Field studies need adequate replication and design and, where claims generalize, multi-site/
multi-season or systems-level evidence; pseudoreplication is disqualifying.
- Reviews and meta-analyses need a reproducible, transparent protocol: search strategy,
inclusion criteria, effect-size handling, heterogeneity, and bias assessment.
- Statistics must match the design (mixed models for multi-environment data; appropriate
meta-analytic models) with uncertainty reported.
- Data and, for syntheses, the extracted dataset/code should be available per Springer policy;
agronomic and environmental metadata must be documented.
Structure & house style
- Standard structured article (research or review/meta-analysis); ASD favours a clearly stated
novel sustainability contribution highlighted up front; re-check current article types and
highlight/graphical-abstract conventions on the live guide.
- The introduction must state the sustainability problem and the specific, evidenced
contribution — what dimension is improved and how it is measured.
- Figures/tables should carry the sustainability argument (trade-off plots, effect-size
forests for syntheses, multi-criteria comparisons) with variability shown.
- A data-availability statement and complete methodological/agronomic metadata are expected;
for syntheses, the full protocol and dataset belong in supplementary material.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.md and
../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors, then
cite the current Agronomy for Sustainable Development page you checked.
- Search the live site for "Agronomy for Sustainable Development submission guidelines" and
follow the current Springer version.
- Re-check article types (research vs. review/meta-analysis), structure, highlights/graphical
abstract, and word/figure expectations.
- Confirm the data-availability/repository policy and, for syntheses, protocol-reporting
expectations.
- 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 competent agronomy result with sustainability asserted but never measured.
- A single site-year or pseudoreplicated trial generalized to a sustainability claim.
- A "review" or meta-analysis with no transparent protocol, inclusion criteria, or bias assessment.
- Trade-offs ignored — a one-dimensional gain presented as overall sustainability.
- Scope mismatch: a pure yield/management or pure soil-mechanism paper with no sustainability framing.
Re-routing decision
- Yield/agronomy and resource-use efficiency without a sustainability contribution →
field-crops-research.
- Agroecosystem environmental outcomes (GHG, nutrient losses, biodiversity) at field-landscape scale →
agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment.
- Soil-process mechanism (SOM, microbial function, nutrient cycling) is the core →
soil-biology-and-biochemistry.
- Broad food-systems significance →
nature-food.
- Large-scale climate/global-change ecosystem process dominant →
global-change-biology.
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Agronomy for Sustainable Development
[Article type] Research / Review / Meta-analysis
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest sustainable-agronomy topics>
[Sustainability contribution] <the measured dimension improved and the evidence + trade-offs>
[Method/evidence] <does design or synthesis protocol clear ASD's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / highlights / data + protocol policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
