Welcome to our new journal—AIMS Agriculture and Food

I am honored to serve as the first Editor in Chief of AMIS Agriculture and Food and on behalf of the Editorial Board I would like to welcome you to the first issue of our journal. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity that every Chief Editor of a scientific journal dreams about—writing the Editorial of the first issue of a new journal.

I would like to thank and congratulate the contributing authors, the editorial board and the managing team for reaching a very significant milestone—launching a new open access journal, AIMS Agriculture and Food. The journal is making its debut at a very exciting yet challenging time, both from the scientific and publishing points of view. A growing global population, a looming food security crisis, a continuous depletion of natural resources and climate challenges present the fields of agriculture and food with tremendous challenges. Ingenuity and creativity in agricultural and food production, a dramatically higher efficiency in utilization of agricultural raw materials and a significant decrease in waste generation, mitigation of climate and environmental issues, developing new food resources, promoting the health and well-being of human through a better diet are a few of the current objectives of the global agriculture and food infrastructures. Overcoming the difficulties and successfully meeting the objectives require all of the relevant disciplines to re-examine and, in many cases, significantly change current concepts, technologies and approaches. The magnitude of the challenges and the complexity of the potential solutions call, more than ever before, for a collaborative effort that spans across many scientific and technological disciplines. It has to be recognized that success in meeting current and future challenges is dependent not only on developing new basic and applicable knowledge and technologies but also on effectively communicating this knowledge and advancements to both the scientific community and the public. The hope and objective of the editorial board is that AIMS Agriculture and Food will evolve, within a short period of time, to become a high-quality platform that can effectively meet this challenge. More than a few scientific journals that address issues relevant to agriculture and food exist, however, we believe that the academic strength and success of our new journal will stem from its unique multi-disciplinary nature. The boundaries that have traditionally defined research pertinent to agriculture and food are becoming increasingly blurred and cutting edge research that is relevant to these fields cannot be confined to the traditional constituent disciplines of either agriculture or food. Current new relevant knowledge and advancements reflect the results of an interdisciplinary research effort addressing the inherent multidisciplinary nature of agriculture and food. AIMS Agriculture and Food has thus been designed to encompass and address a very broad spectrum of relevant disciplines such as:

• Agricultural and food production and utilization

• Food science and technology

• Agricultural and food engineering

• Food chemistry and biochemistry

• Food materials

• Physico-chemical, structural and functional properties of agricultural and food products

• Agriculture and the environment

• Biorefineries in agricultural and food systems

• Food security and novel alternative food sources

• Traceability and regional origin of agricultural and food products

• Authentication of food and agricultural products

• Food safety and food microbiology

• Waste reduction in agriculture and food production and processing

• Animal science, aquaculture, husbandry and veterinary medicine

• Resources utilization and sustainability in food and agricultural production and processing

• Horticulture and plant science

• Agricultural economics

The journal also encourages publications addressing the Agriculture/Food interface as well as research papers and reviews addressing and discussing relevant current and future challenges. We have set the bar high and we strongly believe in the broad scope of the journal. I am confident that a collaborative effort of contributing authors, members of the editorial board and reviewers as well as the managing team will allow creating a high quality, high visibility and competitive first-rate scientific publication. I would like to thank the many experts from different countries who have agreed to serve on the journal’s Editorial Board. We have established an outstanding, academically sound Editorial Board where the multitude of relevant concepts and disciplines are represented in a well-balanced manner. The Editorial Board and I are committed to a serious, thorough and fast-pace peer-review process. I recognize the critical need of researchers to publish their results and am committed to assist them in meeting this goal through AIMS Agriculture and Food. We will work hard to ensure the high quality of the published papers and are committed to evaluate the submitted manuscripts based only on their scientific merits. I recognize the busy schedule of those who volunteered to serve on the Editorial Board and am committed to always remember it when review assignments are made. We are all confident that our managing team will effectively and wisely navigate our new journal to a great competitiveness.

It gives me a great pleasure to welcome you as a reader and, hopefully, also as a future contributor to this very first issue of AIMS Agriculture and Food.