Agronomy for Sustainable Development - Call for Papers: Virtual issue on “Farmer-Centric On-Farm Experimentation (OFE): digital tools for a scalable transformative pathway”
On-Farm Experimentation (OFE) is a farmer-centric pathway for improvement in agri-food systems. Based on experiments designed with farmers, conducted by them, and for their interests first, OFE not only answers farmers’ own questions but also provides data for researchers to create more broadly valuable insights. As such, OFE is a practical and adaptive mechanism to bridge the interest of farmers, researchers, extension services and other stakeholders. Digital technologies facilitate data collection, analysis and the sharing of information and knowledge. This collaborative process, strengthened by digital tools, promises heightened innovation in agriculture by complementing experimental research with local, distributed and participatory processes. OFE responds to novel questions and enduring problems in agri-food systems, raising methodological challenges and highlighting pressing demands at the intersection of human, technological and institutional dimensions.
This Virtual Issue focuses on issues and recent advances relative to OFE with emphasis on enabling digital technologies, including:
- Innovative analytical science for heterogeneous agronomic data and spatially explicit information
- Data and metadata management applied to field-scale participatory OFE, including ethics and best research practices
- Value creation and sharing in OFE, including linkages with broader food system issues
- Issues related to the evolving roles of farmers, researchers and other stakeholders with respect to OFE research
- Organisation and management of OFE, including related to innovation ecosystems to support OFE
- Lessons learnt from both successful and failed OFE endeavours (with or without digital tools)
- Institutional strategies, public policy and investment to support OFE
Contributions that include systemic perspectives as well as inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches are particularly welcome.
This Virtual Issue coincides with OFE2021, the 1st Farmer-Centric On-Farm Experimentation Conference (13–15 October 2021) supported by the OECD –CRP Sustainable Agricultural Systems (this opens in a new tab), #DigitAg (this opens in a new tab), INRAE (this opens in a new tab) and the ISPA (this opens in a new tab) (more details on www.ofe2021.com (this opens in a new tab) ).
Important dates
Submissions open: 1st of August 2021
Submissions end: 1st of March 2022
Submission process
Manuscripts within the scope of ASD (this opens in a new tab) should be submitted online (this opens in a new tab) as regular articles (review and research articles) and should follow the journal submission guidelines (this opens in a new tab). The cover letter submitted with the manuscript should have the following heading: “submission to the OFE Virtual Issue.” Manuscripts will be handled by guest associate editors and peer-reviewed as regular articles. If accepted, they will be published in the journal before being gathered in the virtual issue.
Guest Editors
Dr Myrtille Lacoste, Curtin University, Australia
Dr Isabelle Piot-Lepetit, INRAE, #DigitAg, France
Dr Nicolas Tremblay, International Society of Precision Agriculture, Canada
Prof Simon Cook, Murdoch University, Australia
Agronomy for Sustainable Development (ASD) (this opens in a new tab) is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original experimental, empirical and theoretical research articles, review articles and meta-analyses leading to enhanced sustainability for agricultural and food systems. See the full aims and scope of ASD here (this opens in a new tab).