IFAMR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Download a pdf copy of these IFAMR Guidelines here.

Editorial Philosophy

The International Food and Agribusiness Management Review (IFAMR) is an online and Open Access intellectual meeting place 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 as follows: excellent academic contributions; fast, thorough, and detailed peer reviews; building human capital through the development of good writing skills in scholars and students; broad international representation among authors, editors, and reviewers; a showcase for IFAMA’s unique industry-scholar relationship, and a facilitator of 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. Articles focused on a special issue, case studies, industry interviews, and book reviews are also welcome. 

The Review is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal published by De Gruyeter Brill, with 5–7 issues per year. Special Issues are published on topical and regional issues throughout the year. 

Guidelines for Contributors

Note: We receive a large number of submissions. The high volume, while wonderful, is time consuming for our editors and reviewers. Therefore, articles accepted for review must adhere to our Contributor Guidelines. Unfortunately, we will desk reject submissions that do not follow these guidelines. 

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

Research. Contributions may be theoretical or empirical in nature, but must address an issue of interest to food and agribusiness scholars or managers. Manuscripts should be logically structured and have robust methodology containing references, 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 contains an overview of current research and cases in the field, supplies links between research areas, discusses and provides new ideas and possibilities for further research. It contains an extensive reference list. 

Industry Commentaries. Contributions of commentaries need to be less than 1000 words and should report on professional issues of practical relevance to agribusiness. There is no peer-review of industry commentary. 

Case Studies. The IFAMR encourages food and agribusiness case submissions. We maintain a database of quality teaching cases which can be used for educational purposes. 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 submitted case is considered for the review process. All case studies are reviewed by scholars experienced in either writing and/or using case studies. 

The Review Process

Articles

Each submission undergoing a blind peer review is assigned a Managing Editor by the Executive Editor. The Managing Editor is selected based on either their familiarity with the topic and/or their geographic proximity to the submitting authors. The Managing Editor is responsible for reviewing the manuscript, evaluating the reviews, and working with authors to analyze the information provided by the reviewer team to strengthen the quality of the final product. The Managing Editor will also facilitate manuscripts under revision. Each manuscript is reviewed by a minimum of two anonymous reviewers. The Managing Editor and the Executive Editor determine the final disposition of a manuscript. 

Reviewers are asked to be very specific with their critique and list each item they would like the author to address. To this end line numbers are inserted into each manuscript to help the reviewer’s maximize the clarity of their comments. Authors then shall respond to each of the reviewer’s comments and note where changes occur in the text. If no change is made, a rationale for not changing the text needs to be provided to the reviewer.  

Reviewers will also address the following questions in addition to a thorough critique of the manuscript: 

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 employed, is the source and their 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 or grammatical perspective? 

Reviewers are asked to provide a recommendation to the Managing Editor. Written comments and an assessment are provided for the dimensions mentioned above. The reviewer then makes one final comprehensive recommendation to the Managing Editor: 

a. Reject

b. Major revision

c. Minor revision

d. Accept

Cases

The case and teaching note/package undergoing peer review are sent by the Managing Editor to a minimum of two anonymous reviewers, who are asked to address these questions:

Reviewers are asked to provide a recommendation to the Managing Editor. Written comments and an assessment are provided for the dimensions mentioned above. The reviewer then makes 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 consist of only a few pages. It must provide following items below in the mentioned order (to enable automatic extraction by the submission system):

1. The title of the manuscript. 

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

3. Abstract. Maximum 200 words. The purpose of an abstract is to serve as a “hook” to entice the reader to read your article. Who would be the audience for your article: Management scholars, management practitioners, or both? Construct your abstract to attract your audience. You might test your abstract out on some representatives of the target audience. Ask your sample, “do you want to read more?” 

This abstract description will be utilized in promotional materials. You will receive greater downloads, citations, readership, and impact, the stronger, more attractive and concise your abstract. 

4. Keywords: A list up to 5 keywords should be provided. 

5. JEL-codes: the bibliographic codes of the Journal of Economic Literature 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 conflict of interest. You may add them here if any apply to your article. 

Body of the manuscript

This separate MS WORD file should provide the actual contribution (to continue on the following pages). It may not contain authors details, otherwise 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 can only be submitted in MS WORD format. The submission system will create an author/editor as well as a blind reviewer PDF and automatically add line numbers. 

1. Title Page: Title of manuscript. Contains contact information for authors. See formatting section above. 

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

3. Size: Ideal manuscript length, 15 pages. 

4. Single spaced: Use single spaced lines. 

5. Spelling: Please follow consistently either a Standard United States or Standard United Kingdom English spelling. 

6. Currency values in either $USD or Euros. 

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

8. Font: Times New Roman 12-point. 

9. Please use bold 12 pt. font for all major headings. Sub headings should be italicized 12 pt font. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. The maximum level of subheadings is three (e.g. 1.1.1). 

10. Header/footers: Please do not use headers/footers except for page numbers that are to be placed in the bottom right corner of the page. 

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

Mathematical Notation

Use only essential mathematical notations. Equations should be numbered and appear in the correct location in the manuscript. Preferably, they must be created using the normal font type. If this is not possible, use formula editor. If this cannot be applied, insert them as an image or picture. Do not use formula editor or images for simple characters within a sentence. Do not use text boxes containing equations formatted in a different program, as this may result in formatting conflicts when the file is published on the IFAMR site. Leave a single blank line before and after the 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/figures should appear in the correct location in the manuscript. They should not exceed the page size, the minimum font size is 10. Larger tables can be presented as supplementary data, for instance as an Excel table. Large landscape tables requiring a section break are to be placed at the end of the manuscript; in this case simply indicate in the manuscript where the table should be located). Each table/figure must have a title, and should be referred to in the manuscript, should be centered horizontally, with text wrapping set to none. Figures may use color. Tables should be single-spaced. Please do not use vertical lines, nor shading or patterns; hide grid lines. Vertical alignment of cells should be centered. Please leave a two blank lines before the title of the table/figure and two blank lines following the table/figure. 

An example is provided in the following table, Table 1.

Present all values in Tables and Figures as concisely as possible. Avoid excessive use of zeros or decimals. Use commas to separate thousands and periods to separate decimals. Pay special attention to keep zeros to a minimum on the Y axis of figures. 

Please note that De Gruyter Brill Publishers will not artificially enhance the quality of photos or redraw results presented in figures. Authors therefore should supply figures that are suitable for publication. Figures that lack the quality standard (see below and in the Appendix) will not be considered for publication.

Download a PDF of "Preparing Artwork for IFAMR"

Footnotes

Footnotes should appear throughout the paper as needed and be numbered consecutively, not page-by-page or by section. Use footnotes only for explanatory purposes, not for guiding to specific information or work. 

References

References should be single-spaced at the end of the text. When possible also include the DOI of the article in the reference list. 

References to other publications should contain full bibliographical details. Journal titles should be written in full. For multiple citations in the same year use a, b, c immediately following the year of the publication. An abbreviated sample follows: 

a.   In-text

Author’s last name followed by a year of publication, all in round brackets, e.g. (Jacket, 2009); (John and Sexton, 2007); or (Sam, 2006, 2010a,b; Sam et al., 2005). Names within the brackets listed in alphabetical order (not on publication year). 

b.    Books

Surname, initials (first author), initials, surname (co-authors). Year of publication. Title. Publisher, place, country. 

Smith, J.R. and J. Jones. 2001. Reference style guidelines: a compendium. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA.

c.    Chapters in an edited book

Surname, initials (first author), initials, surname (co-authors). Year of publication. Title. Publisher, place, country. 

Smith, J.R. and J. Jones. 2001. Reference style guidelines: a compendium. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA. 

d.    Journal Articles

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Full journal name volume (number – if pages are not consecutive in volume): pages. DOI (when possible for all articles, but especially for in press) 

Smith, J.R. 2003. Reference style guidelines: an update. Journal of Guidelines 6(3): 118-125. https://doi.org/10.22434/MS23678.03 

Smith, J.R. in press. More reference style guidelines. Journal of Citations. https://doi.org/10.22434/MS23456.23. 

If there is more than one author, list initials followed by surnames. All authors must be shown. 

Mutuc, M., R.M. Rejesus and J.M. Yorobe. 2013. Which farmers benefit the most from Bt corn adoption? Estimating heterogeneity effects in the Philippines. Agricultural Economics 44: 231-239. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12006 

e. Unpublished papers

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Paper/report number if applicable. Institute, place, country.

Wynot, A. and H. Hoffman. 2002. Quantifying Choices in a Sustainable Future. Food and Resource Economics Department Staff Paper (SP02-27), University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.

f.  Extension publications

Surname, initials. Year. Title. Paper number if applicable. Institute, place, extension number: pages.

Jones, R. and F. Cox. 2006. Generic Agricultural Commodity and Promotion: Economics and Impacts. A. E. Ext. New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Department of Agricultural Economics 88-3 (March): 13-16.

g.  Dissertation (unpublished)

Smith, J.R. 2001. Reference style guidelines. PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

h.  Online publications

Smith, J.R. 2001. Reference styles. Available at: http://www.jog.com/article562.html.

Smith, J.R. 2010. Essential references. Newsweek, May 12. Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/5122003.htm.

i.  Paper presented at a gathering

Smith, J.R. 2010. Consumer emancipation: the growing importance of brands. In: Abstract book of IFAMA’s 20^th Annual World Forum and Symposium, Boston, 6-10 June 2010, p. 21.

Appendices and Electronic Supplementary Material

Appendices should adopt the same formatting used in the body of the manuscript. They will be published online as electronic supplementary material. Electronic Supplementary Materials 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.
• Try to keep figures compact and clear.
• Maximum figure size has a width of 165 mm (paper width); i.e. figures should fit onto a single page of the journal.
• In figures consisting of multiple parts, these parts should be arranged in such a way that the maximum size is not exceeded.

Using texts in figures

• Arial is the recommended font for all texts in artwork.

Image types and acceptable file formats

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

• Font size for basic texts should be 9 pt; font size 7 or 8 pt (never smaller than 7 pt) can be used for less important text as an exception.
• Do not rasterize or convert text into outlines.
• In figures consisting of multiple parts, each part should be labeled with a capital character A, B, C, etc.

Graphical items

• Line weights should be 0.5 pt; only if necessary for clear distinction line weights between 0.25 and 1 pt can be accepted.
• Do not use drop shadows.
• Do not use 3-D graphs when there is no scientific reason to do so.
• We prefer all vector images to be submitted as EPS or PDF.
• Almost all common imaging programs allow you to export graphs or images as EPS or PDF files by using the ‘Save as’ or the ‘Export as’ function. If asked, always choose for all fonts to be embedded (do not convert text to outlines). Always check the export options to ensure that images are not downsampled or rasterized.
• Photographs should be submitted as JPG, TIFF or PDS files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Please note that artificial upgrading of the resolution of a photographic image will not improve its quality.
• Only original photographs with good contrast and intensity are acceptable.
• Files combining rasterized and vector images should be submitted as unflattened vector EPS files.
• When in doubt, or in need of help or advice, please e-mail one of our editors at IFAM@brill.com.

Other Tips

1. Avoid the use of first and second personal pronouns (I, we, and you) whenever possible. 

2. Keep sentences short. 

3. Replace linking verbs (is and are) with action verbs whenever possible. 

4. Avoid the use of the passive voice whenever possible. (For more information see examples of passive voice and tips on how to fix them.) 

5. Avoid beginning sentences with a phrase (a partial sentence or statement separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma.) 

6. Make sure you employ an English technical editor to assure your article is grammatically pristine. Poor grammar and misspelling greatly limit the probability an article will be acceptable for publication. De Gruyter Brill Publishers offers Expert English Editing Services.

Cases

Cases should follow the same general formatting guidelines set above for articles. However, a teaching case should include a Teaching Note into the same manuscript (i.e. one file). More information on how to write cases see: Case Study Writing Essentials and Guidelines for Writing Teaching Notes .

A Teaching Note normally includes the following sections:

Statement of Relevance

Illustrate the relevance of the case to food and agribusiness clients.

Target Market Statement

The concise description of the key points and the preferred target market for the case, including:

Teaching Strategy Statement

A detailed illustration of the key concepts presented in the case, and of the suggested strategies for their presentation, including the suggested sequence of key questions, and the possible use of audiovisual / other material.

Activity Statement

Create a list of questions and assignments that could be presented in the case, with an outline of the key answer points. This list should also provide an indication of the relative importance of each observation / solution point; this will assist the presentation of the case and the assessment of contributions by students.

Research Statement

When appropriate, a description of the research process followed to gather the material presented in the case, with a clear indication of what is actual research result and what has been simulated / disguised by the author.

Follow-up Statement

When appropriate, a follow-up to the case, illustrating -as appropriate- further development in the case story, decisions made, their consequences, and suggestions on how all this could be used to maximize case effectiveness.

Submission Conditions

Manuscripts (articles and cases) must not have been previously published or submitted elsewhere simultaneously. Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from the copyright owner for any quotations, illustrations or tables. Authors agree to pay the publication fee of 1100 Euro if the article is accepted (the publication fee will be increased to 1300 Euros per January 1, 2022). An accepted article will be published under the Creative Commons (CC) BY 4.0 publishing license. 

Plagiarism

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

Submissions to the Journal by the Executive or Managing Editors

In order to ensure the absolute integrity of the IFAMR review process, the following two measures have been implemented to handle submissions listing either the Editor-in-Chief or any Managing Editor as an author:

Publication

The IFAMR is published in an electronic format on both IFAMA's website and on the Publisher's website: Brill.

Upon acceptance of the 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. The author is responsible for the accuracy of these proofs. An official letter is sent to confirm acceptance of a submission, and confirm the completion of the blind peer review process. Once accepted for publication, a 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 will require a separate submission to IFAMR.

Fees

The IFAMR is a non-profit organization 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 1300 Euro (ex. VAT) per article is invoiced upon acceptance of the manuscript. The payment term is 14 days after the in voice date. A credit card is the preferable form of payment.

Fee waivers are handled on an individual basis, based on need and the availability of funds. A request for a partial fee waiver must be mentioned in the cover letter of a submission. Only corresponding authors from ‘low income’ and ‘lower middle income’ as defined by the World Bank Country Classification, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method are eligible for a (partial) fee waiver. Note that a decision on granting a (partial) fee waiver is made quarterly by IFAMA, and thus can result in considerable publication delay. 

Submission Instructions

Upload your manuscript, subsequent revisions and all supporting documents electronically by clicking the link: Editorial Manager

You need to login at your account or register as new user before you can submit a manuscript. In your account you are also able to see the progress of the article in the review process, or access any manuscript you were assigned to review.

Editorial Offices

For questions related to the submission challenges or the publication process please contact:
BRILL Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands
Email: Marc Jarmuszewski: marc.jarmuszewski@brill.com

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

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

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 Guidelines here.