agronomy
Editorial
Worldwide Trends in Agronomy Research: Bibliometric Studies
Esther Salmerón-Manzano
1
and Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro
2,
*
Citation: Salmerón-Manzano, E.;
Manzano-Agugliaro, F. Worldwide
Trends in Agronomy Research:
Bibliometric Studies. Agronomy 2021,
11, 1993. https://doi.org/10.3390/
agronomy11101993
Received: 10 September 2021
Accepted: 24 September 2021
Published: 1 October 2021
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1
Faculty of Law, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Av. de la Paz, 137, 26006 Logroño, Spain;
esther.salmeron@unir.net
2
Department of Engineering, CEIA3, University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain
* Correspondence: fmanzano@ual.es; Tel.: +34-950-015-346; Fax: +34-950-015-491
Abstract: Agriculture has the large challenge of providing food for a continuously growing world
population, while natural resources remain the same. This great challenge is certainly supported
in the future by Agronomy, which brings together practical knowledge and scientifically based
techniques and applies them to agricultural productivity. Research in agronomy at a global level
must reflect global interests, while considering the particular conditions of each country or region.
One of the main objectives of this Special Issue is to contribute studies that help to identify the global
research trends in agronomy, especially if they have an approach related to sustainability.
Keywords: agronomy; patents; scopus; sustainability; precision agriculture; coffee; ozone; environment;
health; agroforestry; bibliometrics; berry growers; artificial intelligence; agriculture; robots; farming
automation; economy; irrigation
1. Introduction
Agriculture is the world’s most pressing and responsible sector, given that seven
billion people must eat every day. To achieve this, there are the following three priority
issues: health, variety, and quantity. Agriculture, therefore, is the cultivation of land or the
production of crops from the soil, but its main science of study is agronomy. Agronomy
can be understood as the field of science that oversees organizing the knowledge of
various applied sciences, focused on enhancing the quality of production processes and
the transformation of agricultural products.
Globally, food security is at risk, and for this reason, agronomy must achieve agri-
cultural sustainability on Earth. In summary, Agronomy should contribute to improve the
efficiency in the use of resources for food production.
One of the main objectives of this Special Issue is to contribute studies that help to
identify the global research trends in agronomy, especially if they have an approach related
to sustainability. Therefore, articles reviewing this state of the art in any of these issues,
bibliometric or scientometric studies, and research articles with a global perspective are
welcome. These studies are recommended to identify the research trends in each scientific
field related to agronomy and, if possible, identify the open challenges in that particular
field of study.
2. Publications Statistics
The summary of the call for papers for this Special Issue on the 12 manuscripts
submitted is as follows: three rejected (25%) and nine published (75%).
The submitted manuscripts come from seven countries and are summarized in Table 1.
For this statistic, only the first affiliation of the authors has been considered, in which it
gives us the opportunity to observe 37 authors from 7 countries. Note that it is common for
a manuscript to be signed by more than one author and for authors to belong to different
affiliations. The average number of authors per published manuscript in this Special Issue
was four authors.
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