The Chinese Economy

The Chinese agricultural economy has evolved from focusing on increasing productivity to meet food security needs to enhancing the competitiveness of agricultural production and value chain, improving food safety, and more recently to ensuring the long-term sustainability of agricultural and rural development. Despite the remarkable achievements of realizing food self-sufficiency and the rapid gains in poverty reduction over the past forty-five years, agricultural and food systems in China face substantial social, economic, and environmental challenges that influence their functionality and performance. An increasingly urbanized and middle-class population exert considerable pressure on natural resources, and China is confronting the challenge of conserving natural resources and sustaining ecosystem services while maintaining agricultural production. Stagnating growth rates for both rural income and productivity signal the demand for technological, institutional, and business innovations. Food production and consumption patterns must also be transformed to sustain green development by promoting sustainable supply chain management and motivating individuals to adopt environmentally-friendly consumption behaviors. The complexity of the tasks comes as no surprise to various stakeholders. Nonetheless, it also offers a rare opportunity to study such changes in the making and illuminate optimal paths to achieve a more sustainable future. This special issue seeks empirical research that synthesizes and presents insightful perspectives to contribute to promoting sustainable agricultural and rural development in China, which includes, but not limited to, agricultural production, rural development, sustainable agriculture, food security, and food safety.

1. All submissions will be handled by email. Those interested in submitting their work to this special issue should e-mail their papers in PDF files to [email protected].
2. Manuscripts should be written in English and should contain original materials that have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere – even in another language. They shall not be submitted elsewhere unless it has been withdrawn by authors or rejected by our editors.
3. Manuscripts should be double-spaced and include line numbers and page numbers. All submitted papers will go through a standard double-blind review. Please include a separate title page file with the title, a 100-word abstract, 4-6 keywords, names of the authors, their affiliations, and the email of the corresponding author, and be sure not to reveal author information in the manuscript file. Please refer to the journal website for format.
4. Final editorial decisions shall be sent to authors within three months, and authors of accepted papers will be required to follow the formatting instructions and complete a “Consent to Publish” form.
5. There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges in general. Refer to the journal website for fees if you choose to publish for Open Access.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article