NEW ISPP JOURNAL

 

Food Security:

The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food

 

• Global food security: the enormity of the challenge
• A broad response, coordinated by plant pathologists
• ISPP in partnership with Springer launch the journal Food Security
• Norman Borlaug commends the journal
• Aims and scope: beyond plant pathology, beyond plants, beyond agriculture ..
• Proposed structure
• Advisory Board
• Editor-in-Chief
• Editorial Board
• Further information

 

Global food security: the enormity of the challenge

 

In areas of the world where incomes are low, the provision of adequate food for human consumption is far from secure. As a result, malnutrition still claims the lives of many, particularly the most vulnerable – 18,000 children every day according to one recent estimate. This is an appalling tragedy in the true sense of the word, as such misery is avoidable: but avoidance is seldom simple, as the scope of this proposed journal demonstrates.

 

The journal is the initiative of a distinguished international group of scientists, sociologists and economists who hold a deep concern for the challenge of global food security, together with a vision of the power of shared knowledge as a means of addressing that challenge. They form the journal's Advisory Board.

 

A broad response, coordinated by plant pathologists

 

This initiative is coordinated by ISPP and had its origins in a public forum at ICPP98 in Edinburgh, addressed by Nobel Peace Laureate Dr Norman Borlaug. This resulted in the formation of ISPP's Task Force on Global Food Security. From discussions by the Task Force emerged the concept of a food security journal, shaped under the influence of the Advisory Board, as announced in the ISPP Newsletter in July 2007.

 

ISPP in partnership with Springer launch the journal Food Security

 

In June 2008, after discussions with a number of publishers and consideration of the best interests of the Society and its Members, ISPP signed a Publishing Agreement with Springer to publish a new journal:

Food Security:

The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food

The journal is owned in equal shares by ISPP and Springer. It will appear quarterly from the first quarter of 2009, in electronic and printed formats. The journal will be included in the lists of Springer journals available through Springer Developing Countries Initiatives such as AGORA, HINARI and OARE.

Members of ISPP and of its Associated Societies will be able to access the journal at a cost of EUR 30 per year. Details will be announced

 

Norman Borlaug commends the journal

 

Making the connection with its ISPP origins in 1998, Norman Borlaug has prepared a contribution to the first issue. A preview of Norman Borlaug's contribution to the first issue, commending the journal and the initiative of plant pathologists in developing it, includes this passage:

"I said in 2005 that we will have to double the world food supply by 2050. Meanwhile the term food security has passed into ordinary vocabulary. In recent months, hardly a day passes without the media focusing on the availability of food, the price of food, food safety and so on, in a global context. It is therefore particularly timely that ISPP and Springer are launching, as a joint venture, this journal with its topical title and with the breadth of coverage indicated by its subtitle".

 

Aims and scope: beyond plant pathology, beyond plants, beyond agriculture ...

 

To address the challenge of global food security, the journal seeks to address the constraints - physical, biological and socio-economic - which not only limit food production but also the ability of people to access a healthy diet. The journal contains a mixture of original refereed papers taking a synthetic view of the science, sociology and economics of food production, agricultural development, access to food, and nutrition, together with review articles, case studies and letters to the editor.

 

The journal covers the principles and practice of food security per se, taking an overview of the subject or analysing it with a broad perspective over its many component disciplines. The journal does not seek to duplicate the coverage of the many publications that focus specifically on those component disciplines. Thus Food Security includes reference to plant pathology, for example, but extends far beyond plants and indeed far beyond agriculture. There is no particular focus on plant pathology.

 

Proposed structure

 

• From this perspective, the journal covers the following areas:
• Global food needs: the mismatch between population and the ability to provide adequate nutrition
• Global food potential
• Natural constraints to satisfying global food needs:

• Nutrition, food quality and food safety
• Socio-political factors that impinge on the ability to satisfy global food needs:

Advisory Board

 

Editor-in-Chief

 

Richard Strange

Honorary Professor, University College London

Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London

E-mail:

 

Editorial Board

To be announced

 

Further information

 

Peter Scott

Chairman, ISPP Task Force on Global Food Security

E-mail: