IFAMR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Download a pdf copy of these IFAMR Submission Guidelines here.

Editorial Philosophy

The International Food and Agribusiness Management Review (IFAMR) is an online, Open Access forum for industry executives, managers, scholars, and practitioners interested in the effective management of agribusiness firms and organizations operating in the global food system. It is internationally recognized as a catalyst for discussion and inquiry for those interested in the food and agribusiness system. Specifically, we seek articles that are relevant to management scholars and/or managers.

The core values of the Review are: excellent academic contributions; fast, thorough, and detailed peer reviews; building human capital by developing good writing skills in scholars and students; broad international representation among authors, editors, and reviewers; showcasing IFAMA’s unique industry-scholar relationship; and facilitating international debate, networking, and research in agribusiness.

The Review welcomes scholarly articles on business, economics, public policy, and law pertaining to the global food and agribusiness system. Articles may be applied or theoretical but must address an issue relevant to managers or management and advance the topic through implication and application. Special issue articles, case studies, industry interviews, and book reviews are also welcome.

The Review is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal published by De Gruyter Brill, with five to seven issues per year. Special Issues on topical and regional themes are published throughout the year. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

AI-assisted technologies used in preparing a manuscript should be limited to language editing and improving readability. They should not be used to generate scientific content, analyses, interpretations, or conclusions. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their manuscript, including any content produced with the assistance of AI tools.

Disclosure: Authors must disclose whether and how AI-assisted technologies were used in preparing the manuscript. This is done in two places: in an AI-Use Statement on the title page (see Formatting, Title page, item 7), and in the mandatory AI-use disclosure fields in Editorial Manager at submission (for example, language editing, literature review, coding, or analysis).

For further detail, authors should refer to De Gruyter Brill’s AI Policy for Authors.

Guidelines for Contributors

Note: We receive a large number of submissions. While welcome, this volume is time-consuming for our editors and reviewers. Articles accepted for review must therefore adhere to these Guidelines for Contributors. Submissions that do not follow them will be desk rejected. 

Articles appear in one of the following sections: Research, Reviews, Industry Commentaries, and Case Studies. All submissions except Industry Commentaries are double-blind peer reviewed. 

Research. Contributions may be theoretical or empirical, but must address an issue of interest to food and agribusiness scholars or managers. Manuscripts should be logically structured, use a robust methodology, and include references and, where appropriate, figures, tables, and graphs.

Reviews. Review articles provide a focused, current discussion of a scholarly topic relevant to the field of food and agribusiness. A review article gives an overview of current research and cases in the field, links research areas, and discusses new ideas and possibilities for further research. It includes an extensive reference list.

Industry Commentaries. Commentaries should be fewer than 1,000 words and report on professional issues of practical relevance to agribusiness. Industry Commentaries are not peer reviewed.

Case Studies. The IFAMR encourages food and agribusiness case submissions and maintains a database of quality teaching cases for educational use. Cases published by the IFAMR should address a decision-making problem related to a business, technical, ethical, or regulatory issue confronting a food and agribusiness organization or manager. A teaching note/package is required before a case is considered for review. All case studies are reviewed by scholars experienced in writing and/or using case studies. 

The Review Process

Articles

The Executive Editor assigns a Managing Editor to each submission undergoing double-blind peer review. The Managing Editor is selected based on familiarity with the topic and/or geographic proximity to the submitting authors. The Managing Editor is responsible for reviewing the manuscript, evaluating the reviews, and working with authors to use the reviewers’ feedback to strengthen the final product. The Managing Editor also oversees manuscripts under revision. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers. The Managing Editor and the Executive Editor determine the final disposition of a manuscript.

Reviewers are asked to be very specific in their critique and to list each item they would like the author to address. Line numbers are added to each manuscript to help reviewers make their comments as clear as possible. Authors must respond to each reviewer comment and note where changes appear in the text. If no change is made, the author must give the reviewer a rationale.  

In addition to a thorough critique of the manuscript, reviewers will address the following questions: 

A. Does the author state clear objectives? 

B. Are the objectives directly related to effective and efficient management of firms competing in the food and agricultural industries? 

C. Are the objectives of interest to managers or management scholars? 

D. Is the research problem clearly stated? 

E. Has an effective literature review been conducted? 

F. Is the methodology appropriate, and if so, is it described and applied in an appropriate manner? 

G. If data are used, are their source and collection methodology properly explained? 

H. Are the results and conclusions well presented? 

I. Is the paper well structured, and does it flow? 

J. Is the paper well written from a technical editing and grammatical perspective

Reviewers provide written comments and an assessment on each of the dimensions above, then make one final, comprehensive recommendation to the Managing Editor: 

a. Reject

b. Major revision

c. Minor revision

d. Accept

Cases

The Managing Editor sends the case and teaching note/package to at least two anonymous reviewers, who are asked to address the following questions:

Reviewers provide written comments and an assessment on each of the dimensions above, then make one final, comprehensive recommendation to the Managing Editor:

a. Reject.

b. Major revision.

c. Minor revision.

d. Accept.

Formatting

Articles

Title page

This MS Word file should be only a few pages long. It must include the following items in the order listed (to enable automatic extraction by the submission system):

1. The title of the manuscript.

2. The full name, title/position, department, organization, mailing address, email address, and phone number of the lead author and all co-authors. The submitting author will act as the contact author for matters relating to the review and publication of the manuscript. This need not be the corresponding author on the final paper.

3. Abstract. Maximum 200 words. An abstract should serve as a “hook” that entices readers to read your article. Who is the audience for your article: management scholars, management practitioners, or both? Write your abstract to attract that audience. Consider testing it on a few members of your target audience and asking, “Do you want to read more?”

The abstract will be used in promotional materials. The stronger, more attractive, and more concise your abstract, the more downloads, citations, readership, and impact your article will receive.

4. Keywords: Up to five keywords.

5. JEL-codes: The Journal of Economic Literature classification codes that apply to your article. Find and choose the codes at: https://www.aeaweb.org/econlit/jelCodes.php?view=jel

6. Acknowledgments, financial support, and/or conflicts of interest. Include these here if any apply to your article.

7. AI-Use Statement: Authors must disclose whether and how AI-assisted technologies were used in preparing the manuscript. If none were used, state this explicitly (e.g., “No AI-assisted technologies were used in the preparation of this manuscript.”). If AI tools were used, briefly describe the tool(s) and their purpose (e.g., language editing, grammar checking). See the AI Policy section above. 

Body of the manuscript

This separate MS WORD file contains the actual contribution. It must not contain any author details, or the double-blind review will be compromised. Figures, tables, and supplementary materials can be uploaded as separate files but must also not contain any author details. 

General Formatting Instructions

The title page and the main manuscript files may only be submitted in MS Word format. The submission system will create an author/editor PDF and a blind reviewer PDF and add line numbers automatically. 

1. Title Page: Contains the title of the manuscript and contact information for the authors. See the Formatting section above.

2. Body of Manuscript: Contains the manuscript title, abstract, and keywords on page 1. It must not contain any information identifying the authors.

3. Length: The ideal manuscript length is 15 pages.

4. Line spacing: Single.

5. Spelling: Use either standard US English or standard UK English spelling consistently.

6. Currency values in either $USD or Euros.

7. Paper size: Standard 8.5 × 11 inch letter size is preferred; portrait orientation; 1-inch margins; no gutter.

8. Font: Times New Roman, 12 point.

9. Headings: Use bold 12-point font for all major headings and italic 12-point font for subheadings. Number subsections 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc.), 1.2, and so on. Use no more than three levels of subheadings (e.g., 1.1.1).

10. Header/footers: Do not use headers or footers, except for page numbers, which should be placed in the bottom right corner of the page.

11. Section breaks: Do not insert section breaks in the body of the manuscript. 

Mathematical Notation

Use only essential mathematical notation. Number equations and place them in the correct location in the manuscript. Preferably, create equations using the normal font. If this is not possible, use an equation editor. If that is not possible either, insert them as an image. Do not use an equation editor or images for simple characters within a sentence. Do not use text boxes containing equations formatted in a different program, as this may cause formatting conflicts when the file is published. Leave one blank line before and after each equation. For example:

PP(IFAMR) = f(relevance, clarity, timeliness, methodology, implications, …)    (1)

where PP(IFAMR) is the probability of publication in the IFAMR.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures should appear in the correct location in the manuscript. They should not exceed the page size, and the minimum font size is 10 point. Larger tables can be provided as supplementary data, for instance as an Excel table. Large landscape tables that would require a section break should be placed at the end of the manuscript; in that case, simply indicate in the text where the table belongs. Each table and figure must have a title, be referred to in the text, be centered horizontally, and have text wrapping set to none. Figures may use color. Tables should be single spaced. Do not use vertical lines, shading, or patterns, and hide gridlines. Center cell contents vertically. Leave two blank lines before the title of each table or figure and two blank lines after it.

An example is provided in Table 1.

Present all values in tables and figures as concisely as possible. Avoid excessive zeros or decimal places. Use commas to separate thousands and periods to separate decimals. Keep zeros on the y-axis of figures to a minimum.

Please note that De Gruyter Brill will not artificially enhance the quality of photos or redraw results presented in figures. Authors should therefore supply figures that are suitable for publication. Figures that do not meet the quality standards below and in “Preparing Artwork for the IFAMR” will not be considered for publication.

See "Preparing Artwork for IFAMR" below for detailed requirements.

Footnotes

Use footnotes as needed throughout the paper and number them consecutively, not page by page or by section. Use footnotes only for explanatory purposes, not to direct readers to specific information or works. 

References

Place references, single spaced, at the end of the text. Include a DOI, written as a full https://doi.org/ link, for every source that has one.

References must include full bibliographic details. Write journal titles in full and list all authors. For multiple works by the same author in the same year, add a, b, c, etc. Immediately after the year. For web pages, datasets, and other online sources that may change, give the date you accessed them. The examples below show the required format; examples by “Smith” and “Jones” are illustrative only: 

a. In-text

Author’s last name followed by the year of publication, all in round brackets, e.g., (Smith, 2024); (Smith and Jones, 2023); or (Garcia, 2021, 2024a,b; Neves et al., 2025). Use “et al.” for three or more authors. List names within brackets alphabetically (not by publication year).

b. Journal articles

Surname, initials (first author), initials, surname (co-authors). Year. Title. Full journal name volume(issue): pages. DOI.

Neves, M.F., V. Cambaúva and L. Thomé e Castro. 2025. AMAGGI: growing with sustainability in the grain trading business. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review 28(1): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.22434/ifamr.1083

c. Articles ahead of print

Use “Ahead of print” in place of the volume and pages, and include the DOI.

Smith, J.R. and A. Garcia. 2026. Digital traceability in coffee value chains. Journal of Agrifood Examples. Ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.xxxxx/xxxxx

d. Books

Surname, initials (first author), initials, surname (co-authors). Year. Title, edition if not the first. Publisher, place, country.

Smith, J.R. and J. Jones. 2023. Agribusiness strategy in a changing climate, 2nd edition. Routledge, Abingdon, UK. 

e. Chapters in an edited book

Surname, initials (first author), initials, surname (co-authors). Year. Chapter title. In: initials, surname (ed.) Book title. Publisher, place, country, pages.

Smith, J.R. and J. Jones. 2024. Cooperatives and market access. In: A. Brown (ed.) Handbook of food value chains. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 45-60.

f. Reports by organizations

Organization. Year. Title. Report series and number, if applicable. Publisher, place, country. DOI or URL.

FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2024. The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2024: financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. FAO, Rome, Italy.

g. Working papers and preprints 

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Working paper series and number, or preprint server. Institution, place, country. DOI or URL.

Smith, J.R. 2025. Price transmission in regional dairy markets. Working Paper, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.

h. Extension publications

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Publication number, if applicable. Institution, place, country. URL.

Jones, R. and F. Cox. 2023. Evaluating cost-share programs for small farms. Oregon State University Extension Service, Corvallis, OR, USA.

i. Theses and dissertations

Surname, initials. Year. Title. PhD thesis (or MSc thesis), University, place, country. URL, if available.

Smith, J.R. 2022. Contract farming and smallholder income in East Africa. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.

j. Datasets

Organization or author. Year. Dataset title. Publisher or repository. URL or DOI. Accessed date.

FAO. 2025. FAOSTAT: crops and livestock products. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy. Available at: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL. Accessed 15 September 2025.

k. Software

Author or organization. Year. Name: description, version. Publisher, place. URL.

R Core Team. 2025. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available at: https://www.R-project.org/.

l. Web pages and online articles

Author or organization. Year. Title. Site or publication name, date if available. URL. Accessed date.

Smith, J.R. 2025. How retailers are rethinking food waste. Food Business Weekly, 12 May. Available at: https://www.example.org/food-waste. Accessed 3 June 2025.

m. Conference papers

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Paper presented at: Conference name, place, dates. Proceedings details or URL, if available.

Smith, J.R. 2026. Consumer trust in sustainability labels. Paper presented during: IFAMA 2026 Academic Symposium, Cork, Ireland, 15-19 June 2026.

Appendices and Electronic Supplementary Material

Appendices should use the same formatting as the body of the manuscript. They will be published online as electronic supplementary material. Electronic supplementary material can be any type of editable file, such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, PDF, or MP4. 

Preparing Artwork for the IFAMR

Size and arrangement of figures

• Provide figures approximately at the size at which they will be printed.
• Keep figures compact and clear.
• The maximum figure width is 165 mm (the page width), so that each figure fits on a single page of the journal.
• Arrange multi-part figures so that the maximum size is not exceeded.

Using texts in figures

Image types and acceptable file formats

There are two basic types of images: vector images and raster (bitmap) images. Vector images can be enlarged without loss of quality; raster images cannot. Photographs are raster images. For all other figures, we accept only vector images.

• Use 9 point for basic text. As an exception, 7 or 8 point (never smaller than 7 point) can be used for less important text.
• Do not rasterize text or convert it into outlines.
• Label each part of a multi-part figure with a capital letter: A, B, C, etc.

Graphical items

• Line weights should be 0.5 point. Line weights between 0.25 and 1 point are acceptable only where needed for clear distinction.
• Do not use drop shadows.
• Do not use 3-D graphs unless there is a scientific reason to do so.
• We prefer all vector images to be submitted as EPS or PDF files.
• Almost all common imaging programs can export graphs or images as EPS or PDF files using the “Save as” or “Export as” function. If prompted, always choose to embed all fonts (do not convert text to outlines). Always check the export options to ensure that images are not down sampled or rasterized.
• Submit photographs as JPG, TIFF, or PDF files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Please note that artificially increasing the resolution of a photographic image will not improve its quality.
• Only original photographs with good contrast and intensity are acceptable.
• Submit files that combine raster and vector images as unflattened vector EPS files.
• When in doubt, or if you need help or advice, please email our editors at IFAM@brill.com.

Other Tips

1. Avoid first- and second-person pronouns (I, we, and you) whenever possible.
2. Keep sentences short.
3. Replace linking verbs (is, are) with action verbs whenever possible.
4. Avoid the passive voice whenever possible.
5. Avoid beginning sentences with an introductory phrase (a partial statement separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma).
6. Use an English-language technical editor to ensure your article is grammatically flawless. Poor grammar and misspellings greatly reduce the likelihood that an article will be accepted for publication. De Gruyter Brill offers English language editing services. Any use of AI tools for language editing must be disclosed in line with the AI Policy above.

Cases

Cases should follow the general formatting guidelines for articles set out above. However, a teaching case must include its Teaching Note in the same manuscript file. For more information on writing cases, see: Case Study Writing Essentials and Guidelines for Writing Teaching Notes.

A Teaching Note normally includes the following sections:

Statement of Relevance: Explains the relevance of the case to food and agribusiness audiences.

Target Market Statement: A concise description of the key points of the case and its preferred target market, including:

• the main topics covered by the case;
• the specific teaching objectives of the case;
• the intended audience (senior undergraduate course, graduate course, executive education, or adult education/extension); and
• a list of references and support materials that the instructor and students can use to gain maximum benefit from the case.

Teaching Strategy Statement: A detailed explanation of the key concepts presented in the case and suggested strategies for presenting them, including the suggested sequence of key questions and the possible use of audiovisual or other materials.

Activity Statement: A list of questions and assignments that could be used with the case, with an outline of the key points of each answer. The list should also indicate the relative importance of each observation or solution point, to help with presenting the case and assessing student contributions.

Research Statement: Where appropriate, a description of the research process used to gather the material presented in the case, clearly indicating what is actual research and what has been simulated or disguised by the author.

Follow-up Statement: Where appropriate, a follow-up to the case describing further developments in the case story, decisions made, and their consequences, with suggestions on how this material can be used to maximize the effectiveness of the case.

Submission Conditions

Manuscripts (articles and cases) must not have been previously published or be under consideration elsewhere. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright owner for any quotations, illustrations, or tables. Authors agree to pay the publication fee of 1,500 EUR (1,700 USD). Accepted articles are published under the Creative Commons (CC) BY 4.0 license. 

Plagiarism

If a submitted manuscript is found to involve serious or extensive plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, it will be rejected. The editor may document these allegations and report them to the appropriate officials at the authors’ home institution(s).

Submissions to the Journal by the Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editors

To ensure the absolute integrity of the IFAMR review process, the following two measures apply to submissions listing the Editor-in-Chief or any Managing Editor as an author:

1. A past Editor of the IFAMR will serve as Guest Editor for any research manuscript or case study listing the current Editor-in-Chief as an author or co-author.
2. The Editor-in-Chief will ensure that a Managing Editor who is a co-author is not involved in any deliberations concerning that manuscript.

Publication

The IFAMR is published electronically on both IFAMA’s website and the publisher’s website: Brill.

Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, authors will sign the Open Access publication license to IFAMA and provide the Editorial Office with a final version of the manuscript. The corresponding author will receive page proofs in PDF format for final inspection before publication and is responsible for their accuracy. An official letter is sent to confirm acceptance of the submission and completion of the double-blind peer review process. Once an article has been accepted for publication, the file cannot be modified. Minor corrections will be added to the file but will not replace the original text. Changes and revisions of a more substantial nature require a separate submission to the IFAMR.

Fees

IFAMA is a non-profit organization, and the IFAMR is supported by a combination of fees, industry grants, and in-kind professional support. Authors are not charged a submission fee for the double-blind peer review process. However, a fixed Publication Editing Fee of 1,500 EUR / 1,700 USD (excluding VAT) per article is invoiced upon acceptance of the manuscript. Payment is due 14 days after the invoice date. Credit card is the preferred form of payment.

Fee waivers are handled individually, based on need and the availability of funds. A request for a partial fee waiver must be made in the cover letter of the submission. Only corresponding authors from low-income and lower-middle-income countries, as defined by the World Bank Country Classification (calculated using the World Bank Atlas method), are eligible for a (partial) fee waiver. Please note that IFAMA decides on (partial) fee waivers quarterly, which can result in considerable publication delays. 

Submission Instructions

The IFAMR uses Editorial Manager to manage the workflow of your manuscript, subsequent revisions, and all supporting documents related to your submission. You can also track the progress of your article through the review process there. During submission, you will be required to complete the AI-use disclosure fields described in the AI Policy above.

Editorial Manager is also the portal you will use to access a manuscript if you are invited to serve as a reviewer for the IFAMR. To begin:

1. Login into your account here: Editorial Manager
2. 2.If you are a new user, you will need to create an account before you can start the upload process.

Step-by-step instructions for authors on using Editorial Manager can be found here: Author Manual.

Editorial Offices

For questions about technical issues with submission or about the publication process, please contact:

BRILL Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands
Marc Jarmuszewski: marc.jarmuszewski@brill.com

For questions about the publication timeline, the review process, resubmissions, or to propose a special issue topic, please contact:

Office of Editor-in-Chief
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Editor-in-Chief: Kevin Chen
Editorial Coordinator: Prof. Rui Mao
Editorial Assistant: Yunyi Zhou

Email: ifamroeic@zju.edu.cn

Download a pdf copy of these IFAMR Submission Guidelines here.