Cogent Food & Agriculture

Following the tendency of fast growing global population, the demand for food and non-food agricultural products continues to grow. The latest data showed that 50% of habitable land and 70 % of available fresh water on the planet are used for agriculture. At the same time, 26% of greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. It was projected that food needs will increase with up to 60% worldwide by 2050. At the same time, there is a limited availability of arable land, increased soil erosion and eutrophication of the water basins, serious climate changes, raising local conflicts and changing geopolitical factors. These are huge challenges to the current agricultural practices and raise the question for developing of new alternative methods for sustainable production agricultural goods.

Cellular agriculture is a multidisciplinary technology, exploring the potential of individual cells from plants and animals or microorganisms to produce agricultural products in controlled environment in bioreactors instead of relying on fields and farmed animals. Many novel foods and functional ingredients can be produced by large scale cultivation of cell cultures or precision fermentation without the need to use cultivated crops of farmed livestock. This technology is sustainable, environmentally friendly, requires significantly less energy, land and water use when compared to traditional agriculture practices.

This Article Collection aims to summarize the latest achievements in research and development of agricultural products, produced by cellular agriculture techniques. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Mammalian cells for cellular agriculture
• Plant cells for cellular agriculture
• Microbial cells and algae for cellular agriculture
• Insect cells for cellular agriculture
• Precision fermentation
• Production and formulation of cellular and acellular products
• Production of foods by cellular agriculture
• Production of cosmetic ingredients by cellular agriculture
• Production of fibers, raw materials and functional ingredients by plant cells
• Tissue engineering, new matrix for cell encapsulation, 3D printing
• Process optimization and cost effectiveness
• Safety, legislation and public concerns

We welcome the submission of both original research and review papers.

Please review the submission instructions below prior to submitting an abstract and/or manuscript.

Article Collection Guest Advisor

Dr. Vasil Georgiev obtained his PhD at The Stephan Angeloff Institute of Microbiology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 2009. He is an expert on bioprocess engineering and secondary metabolites production by plant cells, tissue and organ cultures, functional genomics, metabolite profiling, development and improvement of plant in vitro production platforms. In 2011 he was awarded by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with the “Prof. Marin Drinov” prize for the outstanding research in biological sciences. Dr. Georgiev did postdoctoral research at Florida A&M University, USA (2012-2016). Currently, he is Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Cell Biosystems. Since 2020, Dr. Georgiev is the Deputy Director of The Stephan Angeloff Institute of Microbiology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer-review as part of our standard editorial process. Guest Advisors will not be involved in peer-reviewing manuscripts unless they are an existing member of the Editorial Board.

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31st July 2024. Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system and to include any discount codes before you submit as these will not be applied retrospectively.

Please contact Ruby Ru, Commissioning Editor, with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article