Climate-Smart and Sustainable Animal Food Value Chains
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Products".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2024 | Viewed by 6965
Special Issue Editors
Interests: socioeconomic sustainability of livestock production systems; agricultural economics; farm management; multifunctionality
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Animal food value chains face numerous structural, operational and environmental challenges that challenge their sustainability. Farmers and processors face increasing pressure to intensify production, driven by global market demand and volatile prices, while simultaneously addressing consumer expectations for “green” products with low footprints and high animal welfare. However, these objectives are often conflicting, as the intensification of livestock production systems comes with hefty expenses, animal health and welfare issues, as well as largely negative environmental effects related mainly to GHG emissions, nutrient contamination of soil and groundwater pollution. In addition, logistical packaging and other functions also have environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Thus, the development of sustainable animal production should be considered from a holistic and global perspective in order to capture the cumulative effect of all actors involved across the value chain of animal products. With the adoption of efficient climate-smart technologies, food value chains can make a decisive step towards improving the productivity and resilience of livestock farmers and other value chain actors, and will contribute to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change.
The aims of this Special Issue are to bring together contributions from a wide range of disciplines related to the concept of sustainable animal food value chains and climate-smart interventions in order to analyze the current situation, to facilitate more effective knowledge exchange and implementation on this topic, to promote best practices and innovations, and to discuss the potential and the limitations of the sustainable animal food value chain framework. Contributions sharing results of research projects and real-life industry applications are particularly welcomed.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcomed. Research areas include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Socioeconomic analysis of sustainable livestock systems and animal food value chains;
- Sustainable management of livestock farms and valorization of livestock product value chains;
- Circular economy in livestock production—byproduct and water valorization;
- Modernization of animal value chains/precision livestock farming with technological trends;
- Extensive livestock production, pastoralism and traditional ecological knowledge;
- Production of artisanal food of animal origin as an alternative to industrialized production;
- Mitigation/adaptation measures to climate change;
- Innovations and best practices for sustainable livestock production systems and value chains;
- Policies for sustainable and efficient animal food value chains.
Dr. Athanasios Ragkos
Dr. Georgia Koutouzidou
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- animal food value chains
- animal health and welfare
- animal production
- adoption
- climate change
