New Agriculture & Food Security Journal

The first articles published by the new online Agriculture & Food Security Journal were announced this week. I am pleased to assist the Journal as a member of a diverse editorial board. This is a new venture for me, and it is one that I am proud to support. It is not only truly international, but it is truly interdisciplinary. I am pleased to represent law along side our well-recognized colleagues in other disciplines.


The Editors-in-Chief of the new Journal are distinguished leaders in agriculture. Malcolm Elliott is the Founding Director of The Norman Borlaug Institute for Global Food Security in the United Kingdom; Molly Jahn is a Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and Department of Agronomy, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States; and Magdy Madkour is a Professor of Biotechnology in the Arid Lands Agricultural Research Institute, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, in Cairo, Egypt.

Here is an excerpt from the Journal's publication announcement:

The global population exceeded seven billion at the end of October 2011, and continues to grow rapidly. It is of paramount importance to ensure sustainable food production to provide adequate sustenance and nutrition for the growing population. 

Agriculture & Food Security is an open access journal focusing on innovations in agriculture and food systems towards food security both in the developing and developed world. It was launched by BioMed Central on 19 April 2012 to address the challenge of global food security. The journal welcomes cutting-edge research contributions across the breadth of relevant academic disciplines, including agricultural, ecological, environmental, nutritional, and socio-economic sciences, public health and policy. For more information, please see our launch Editorial and aims and scope.  

Here are links to the first articles published:

Review
Food security for Africa: an urgent global challenge
By Albert Sasson
Agriculture & Food Security 2012, 1:2 (19 April 2012)
Abstract | Full text | PDF

Review
Impact of climate change on arid lands agriculture Adel El-Beltagy and Magdy Madkour
Agriculture & Food Security 2012, 1:3 (19 April 2012)
Abstract | Full text | PDF

Review
The development of Brazilian agriculture: future technological challenges and opportunitiesPedro AA Pereira, Geraldo B Martha, Carlos AM Santana and Eliseu Alves
Agriculture & Food Security 2012, 1:4 (19 April 2012)
Abstract | Full text | PDF

Authors are invited to submit their research to Agriculture & Food Security and take advantage of its online submission process and rapid peer review. There are no color charges and no limits on the number of figures or videos. Agriculture & Food Security, like all BioMed Central journals, complies with the open access policies of many funders including those of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health, and Wellcome Trust.

Members of the new Editorial Board are listed as follows:

Naglaa Abdallah (Egypt)
Arie Altman (Israel)
Klaus Ammann (Switzerland)
Tim Benton (UK)
Carlos Borroto (Cuba)
Ademola Braimoh (USA)
Tracey Brown (UK)
Michael Carter (USA)
Ratana Chuenpagdee (Canada)
Claire Cockcroft (UK)
Edward Cocking (UK)
Karabi Datta (India)
Swapan Datta (India)
Nina Fedoroff (Saudi Arabia)
Luis Herrera-Estrella (Mexico)
Clive James (Cayman Islands)
Gurdev Khush (USA)
Sir Peter Lachmann (UK)
David Lawrence (UK)
Barbara Mazur (USA)
Maurice Moloney (UK)
Agnes Mwang'ombe (Kenya)
Ioan Negrutiu (France)
Jerry Nelson (USA)
Theib Oweis (Syria)
Bilijana Papazova (Switzerland)
Per Pinstrup-Andersen (USA)
Latha Rangan (India)
Rafael Rangel-Aldao (Venezuela)
Peter Raven (USA)
Elibio Rech (Brazil)
Mark Rosegrant (USA)
Albert Sasson (Morocco)
Susan Schneider (USA)
Robert Scholes (South Africa)
Adrian Slater (UK)
Berhanu Tameru (USA)
Lord Dick Taverne QC (UK)
Peter Timmer (USA)
Bob Webb (UK)
Meryl Williams (Australia)
Zhi-hong Xu (China)