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

• The sustainability contribution is explicit, measured, and load-bearing — not decoration.
• The relevant environmental/economic/social dimension is evidenced, with trade-offs acknowledged.
• Field claims have adequate replication/design and systems- or multi-environment-level support.
• Reviews/meta-analyses follow a transparent, reproducible protocol with bias assessment.
• Statistics match the design (mixed/meta-analytic models) with uncertainty reported.
• Data-availability statement, metadata, and (for syntheses) the extracted dataset are prepared.

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>