Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems

Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems is a multidisciplinary open-access journal from Cambridge University Press, concerned with the science behind economically, environmentally and socially sustainable farming and food production. It started in 1986 as the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, took its present name with volume 19 in 2004, and holds a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 2.4, ranked 31st of 95 titles in Agriculture, Multidisciplinary.《可再生农业与食物系统》是剑桥大学出版社出版的多学科开放获取刊物，关注经济层面与环境层面，也关注社会层面上可持续的农业与食物生产背后的科学。刊物 1986 年以《American Journal of Alternative Agriculture》之名创刊，2004 年第 19 卷起改用现名，2025 年影响因子为 2.4，在农业综合类 95 种刊物中列第 31 位。

Scope

• The remit is drawn by sustainability rather than by crop or discipline, which is why agronomy, ecology, economics and rural sociology share the same pages.取材范围由可持续性界定，不按作物或学科划线，农学与生态学同处一卷，经济学和乡村社会学也在其中。

• Economic papers weigh farm viability, labour and market structure, and they follow through to the public policies that decide what growers can afford to attempt.经济一侧的论文考察农场盈利与劳动力，也考察市场结构以及左右种植者取舍的公共政策。

• Ecological work treats the agro-ecosystem as its unit of study and asks how farming changes soil, water, biodiversity and the climate.生态方向的研究看农业系统如何影响土壤与水分，如何改变生物多样性和气候，把农田生态系统当作研究单元。

• Renewable resources and biodiversity inside farming systems form a standing theme, running from cover crops and rotations to habitat kept at the field margin.农田生态系统内部的可再生资源与生物多样性是常设主题，从覆盖作物与轮作，到田块边缘的生境经营。

• Technology is read for its consequences as well as its promise, with digital tools, breeding and machinery examined alongside the data systems built around them.技术既看前景也看后果，数字工具与育种在列，机械以及附着其上的数据系统同样在讨论之列。

• Sociological questions carry equal weight, among them food justice, the standing of smallholders, consumer trust and the governance of food systems.社会学问题分量相同，食物正义与小农处境都在其中，消费者信任和食物系统治理同样被追问。

• Production is followed past the farm gate into processing, distribution and consumption, since a sustainability claim seldom holds at only one link in the chain.讨论不止于农场门口，还延伸到加工与流通，也延伸到消费，因为可持续的说法很少只在链条的一环上成立。

• Agricultural education and outreach are named in the aims, and studies of extension method, farmer learning and curriculum design are openly encouraged.农业教育与推广在征稿范围里被点名，推广方法与农民学习受到明确欢迎，课程设计的研究同样在列。

• Original research and review articles are the two main formats, and the review track is meant for synthesis across sites and disciplines rather than for single trials.原创研究与综述是两种主要体裁，综述用来跨地点与跨学科地综合证据，不用于报告单项试验。

• A discussion forum stays open for provocative subjects, which gives contested ideas a room that a standard research paper cannot offer.刊物保留一个讨论论坛，容纳有争议的议题，这类内容在常规研究论文里没有位置。

• Farming systems are compared across scales, from plot trials and whole-farm studies to landscape and regional assessments.农业系统在不同尺度上比较，从小区试验与全场研究，到景观层次与区域尺度的评估。

• Conventional and organic systems both fall inside the remit, because the question put to a practice is whether it can be sustained, not which label it wears.常规体系与有机体系都在范围之内，刊物追问的是某种做法能否持续，不看它挂什么标签。

• Methods are expected to match the question, so surveys, field experiments, modelling and participatory work all appear without a hierarchy among them.方法要与问题相配，调查与田间试验都能出现，模型和参与式研究也不分高低。

History

• The journal began in 1986 as the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, a title that appeared when low-input and alternative farming were first drawing organised research attention in the United States.刊物 1986 年以《American Journal of Alternative Agriculture》之名创刊，其时低投入农业与替代农法刚在美国引起有组织的研究兴趣。

• Eighteen volumes appeared under that title between 1986 and 2003, and the original ISSN pair, 0889-1893 in print and 1478-5498 online, belongs to them.1986 年至 2003 年间，这个刊名之下出满 18 卷，旧刊号 0889-1893 与电子刊号 1478-5498 属于这一时期。

• A From the Editor piece by William Lockeretz ran in volume 12, at pages 94 to 95 of the second issue in 1997, the kind of short address the journal printed beside its research papers.（William Lockeretz）撰写的《From the Editor》刊于 1997 年第 12 卷第 2 期第 94 至 95 页，这类简短弁言与研究论文并排印出。^[1]

• The name changed with volume 19 in 2004, when Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems replaced the old title and the volume numbering simply carried on.更名从 2004 年第 19 卷生效，《可再生农业与食物系统》取代旧名，卷号原样接续。

• A new ISSN pair arrived with the title, 1742-1705 for print and 1742-1713 for the online edition, leaving the old numbers with the closed back file.新刊名带来新的刊号，印刷版为 1742-1705，网络版为 1742-1713，旧号随封闭的过刊一并留存。

• Cambridge records the two titles as one continuous run, volume 1 in 1986 giving way to volume 19 in 2004 without a break in the sequence.剑桥把两个刊名登记为一条连续的卷次，1986 年第 1 卷一路走到 2004 年第 19 卷，中间没有断号。

• Registration of the title changed hands as well: volumes 19 to 21 carry the 10.1079 prefix associated with CABI, and the 10.1017 prefix of Cambridge University Press appears from volume 22 in 2007.刊物的登记方同样几经转手，第 19 至 21 卷使用 CABI 的 10.1079 前缀，剑桥大学出版社的 10.1017 前缀从 2007 年第 22 卷起出现。

• Four issues a year were the pattern from volume 20 to volume 29, and six numbered issues appeared annually from volume 30 in 2014.第 20 卷至第 29 卷维持一年 4 期，2014 年第 30 卷起改为一年 6 个编号期。

• Issue numbers were dropped altogether with volume 38 in 2023, when articles began to appear continuously under electronic article numbers instead of page ranges.2023 年第 38 卷取消期号，文章改为连续发布，用电子文章编号代替连续页码。

• One volume still closes each year, so 2025 was volume 40 and the volume now being filled is 41.每年仍收满一卷，2025 年为第 40 卷，眼下在编的是第 41 卷。

• Access moved to the open model, the journal now runs without a subscription wall, and the 2025 citation report counts the whole output as gold open access.访问方式转向开放获取，刊物如今没有订阅墙，2025 年引证报告把全部载文计为金色开放获取。

• The 2025 report gives a Journal Impact Factor of 2.4, a five-year figure of 2.9, 2,375 citations, a cited half-life of 8.2 years and about 30 items.2025 年报告给出影响因子 2.4，五年影响因子 2.9，总被引 2375 次，被引半衰期 8.2 年，载文约 30 篇。

• Between 2022 and 2025 the impact factor moved inside a narrow band, reading 2.915, 2.0, 2.0 and 2.4 in the four most recent reports.影响因子自 2022 年以来在 2.0 与 2.9 之间摆动，最近四份报告依次为 2.915，2.0，2.0 与 2.4。

• Its place in the category moved as well, and 31st of 95 agriculture titles in 2025 puts it in the second quartile.类目位次同样变动，2025 年在 95 种农业类刊物中列第 31 位，落在 Q2 区。

• The journal reaches its fortieth anniversary in 2026, the year in which volume 41 is being assembled.2026 年恰逢创刊四十周年，第 41 卷正是在这一年编成。

Editors

• Katherine Dentzman of Iowa State University is Editor-in-Chief, and she comes to the post as a rural sociologist.主编为爱荷华州立大学的（Katherine Dentzman），其学术出身是乡村社会学。

• Her published work looks at how farmers reason through difficult choices, with the management of herbicide-resistant weeds among her subjects.她本人的研究关注农户如何权衡棘手的选择，抗除草剂杂草的治理是其中一项。

• Thirty-six associate editors serve under her, and the board list runs to 37 names in all.她之下有 36 位副编辑，编委名单合计 37 人。

• The board is anchored in the United States, where 27 of the 37 members are based, and the land-grant universities carry several seats, with Florida at three and Iowa State and Ohio State at two each.编委以美国为重心，37 位成员中有 27 位在美国任职，赠地院校占了多个席位，佛罗里达大学在列的有三人，爱荷华州立大学与俄亥俄州立大学各两人。

• The remaining seats reach Canada, Spain, Italy, France, China, Brazil and Denmark, so the board is not confined to one farming region.其余席位分布在加拿大与西班牙，意大利和法国各有数人，中国与巴西各有一席，丹麦亦在其列，编委因此不限于一个农业区域。

• Disciplines on the board run from soil science and agronomy to agricultural economics, entomology, food studies and rural sociology.编委的学科从土壤学与农学，一直铺到农业经济学和昆虫学，食物研究与乡村社会学也在其中。

• Several editors work for public bodies rather than universities, among them Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the United States Department of Agriculture, Italy's CREA and Brazil's CNPq.若干编辑供职于公共机构而非大学，加拿大农业及农业食品部与美国农业部都在其中，意大利 CREA 和巴西 CNPq 亦各有代表。

• Manuscripts go through Editorial Manager, the submission system named on the journal's own pages, where authors keep an account separate from their Cambridge Core login.稿件经 Editorial Manager 投递，这是刊物页面上标明的投稿系统，作者在该系统另设账号，与剑桥平台的登录分开。

• The journal asks for work that states its implications for practice, and the editors' own description places outreach and education beside experiment and survey.刊物要求稿件说明研究对实践的意义，编辑在自述里把推广与教育同试验和调查并列。

• Reviews are handled as a distinct track, which lets the board gather scattered field evidence into a single account.综述按单独一路处理，编委因此能把分散的田野证据收拢到一篇里。

• Short pieces with an edge are solicited for the discussion forum, a format the editors treat as part of the remit rather than as an annex to it.讨论论坛接受短而有锋芒的文章，编辑把它算作刊物范围的一部分，不当附属栏目。

• Cambridge runs a reviewer recognition scheme for the title, and the information pages keep separate guidance for reviewers and for authors.剑桥为刊物设了审稿人认可机制，信息页把审稿指南与作者指南分列。