Modern Agriculture

About Modern Agriculture

Modern Agriculture — Profile and Author Guide

Modern Agriculture is an interdisciplinary, open-access journal on the Wiley Online Library platform, identified by online ISSN 2751-4102 and published under the Wiley-VCH imprint recorded on this site's directory entry. Its article DOIs carry the prefix element moda — for example 10.1002/moda.70022 — which is the quickest way to confirm that a given article belongs to this journal and not to one of the several similarly named agriculture titles in circulation. Wiley presents the journal as a forum for solutions to the social challenges of sustainable development, publishing research that crosses the natural, economic and social sciences. Its content on the Wiley platform dates from 2023, with early articles appearing that April — including a widely cited agenda-setting piece asking one hundred essential questions for the future of agriculture — so this is a young journal, deliberately built for the present research landscape rather than adapted from a print-era predecessor.

Youth, in this case, is a design choice with consequences an author should understand. A journal launched into the open-access era begins without a legacy subscriber base, without an inherited impact factor, and with everything to prove about its community — but also without legacy constraints on article types, speed or scope. Wiley's own presentation of Modern Agriculture stresses exactly those modern features: interdisciplinary reach across researchers and policy makers, fast publication supported by a dedicated team of professional editors, and innovative article types that include a patent article alongside research, review and commentary. This profile explains what the journal publishes, what its displayed performance figures do and do not mean, how its editorial model differs from society and university journals, and how an author should decide whether a manuscript belongs here.

At a Glance

Scope in Depth: Agriculture as a System

Wiley describes the journal as publishing interdisciplinary, open-access research in all aspects of agriculture with a focus on innovation, encompassing natural, economic and social sciences and providing a holistic view of innovative agriculture and its wider societal impact. The areas named on the journal page include agricultural engineering, soil science, biotechnology, agroecology, agricultural management, agricultural economics, bioenergy crops, farming techniques and food security — and that list, read carefully, is a map of a system rather than a set of silos. Soil science and biotechnology address the biological base; engineering and farming techniques address how work is done; agroecology addresses the ecological relationships in which production sits; management and economics address decisions, markets and livelihoods; bioenergy and food security address two of the largest social purposes modern agriculture is asked to serve.

The journal's recent contents show that breadth in operation. Within a short window on its platform a reader can find a laboratory-to-field protocol for regeneration and genetic transformation in pepper; a computational study of how an engineered biochar immobilises cadmium in soil; a review of an underused legume as a sustainable functional food; a field study of a rotation system that raised oat yield and profit through soil nutrient build-up; a commentary on expanding the energetic limits of photosynthesis; and, among its most cited work, reviews on carbon and nitrogen distribution in crops, on smart breeding driven by sequencing technology, and on selenium in modern agriculture, together with a critical assessment of agricultural data structures across the farm-to-fork chain. Plant science, soil chemistry, agronomy, food science, data infrastructure and photosynthesis engineering in adjacent issues of one journal is not a failure of focus — it is the focus. The editorial bet is that the solutions agriculture needs sit at the joins between these specialties, and that a journal willing to publish across the joins will attract work that narrower titles cannot place.

For an author, the practical test follows from that bet. A manuscript whose contribution is entirely inside one established specialty, with no implication beyond it, may be competently handled here but will usually be stronger in the specialty journal its authors already read. A manuscript that connects levels — a gene to a field outcome, a soil process to a farm budget, a data standard to a supply chain, a breeding advance to a food-security result — matches the journal's stated reason to exist. The introduction of such a paper should make the connection, and its intended readership beyond the home specialty, explicit in the first page.

The Patent Article and Other Formats

Of the article types Wiley lists — research, review, commentary and patent — the last is the distinctive one, and it deserves explanation because few established journals offer it. A patent-type article, as the journal presents it, is a route to share an invention-oriented contribution in a scholarly venue: what was built or devised, how it works, and why it matters, presented for an interdisciplinary readership rather than only for examiners and lawyers. For agricultural engineering and technology groups, whose output often includes devices, processes and formulations that sit awkwardly between a research paper and a patent filing, that format acknowledges a real category of innovation work. Authors considering it should take the precise requirements — including how the format treats prior disclosure and intellectual-property timing — from Wiley's current author guidelines for the journal, because those details affect legal rights and must not be guessed from a summary.

The commentary format matters for a different reason: it lets the journal host argument about direction, not only reports of results, as its photosynthesis commentary illustrates. Reviews, meanwhile, carry much of the journal's early citation record, which is typical for a young interdisciplinary title: a well-judged review that maps a fast-moving area — smart breeding, nutrient distribution, a neglected crop — serves readers across specialties at once. Authors proposing a review should expect to justify its timing and its angle, since an interdisciplinary journal receives many review ideas and can publish only those that genuinely synthesise rather than summarise.

Metrics: Reading a Young Journal's Numbers Honestly

Wiley's journal page displays three figures prominently: a CiteScore of 5, an acceptance rate of 38%, and a median of 10 days from submission to first decision. Each deserves a precise reading. The CiteScore display indicates that the journal has accumulated citations at a respectable rate for a title whose content began in 2023; CiteScore is a Scopus-based measure, and authors should consult the current Scopus record for the figure's year, the journal's category placement and any quartile information, rather than treating a platform display as a permanent attribute. No Journal Impact Factor is stated in this profile, because none was verified from Clarivate sources for this journal during research; if and when the journal receives one, it will be announced by the publisher and listed in Journal Citation Reports, and those are the places to confirm it.

The process figures are, for many authors, the more decision-relevant numbers. A median first decision of ten days, delivered by a model Wiley describes as a dedicated team of professional editors, signals a triage-led workflow: manuscripts are assessed quickly for fit and quality, many decisions at that stage are editorial, and papers sent for external review proceed from there. A 38% acceptance rate indicates selectivity well above a accept-most-submissions model while remaining within reach of a solid, well-matched manuscript. Neither figure is a promise about an individual paper — medians conceal wide variation, and a fast first decision can be a rejection — but together they describe a journal competing on professional speed as part of its offer to authors.

Open Access, Charges and Rights

Modern Agriculture is an open-access journal: its articles are free to read on the Wiley platform, which for agricultural research is more than a convenience. Much of this journal's natural readership — agronomists in public institutes, extension specialists, policy analysts, researchers in lower-income agricultural economies — works outside the subscription budgets of wealthy university libraries, and open access is what makes an interdisciplinary agriculture journal actually interdisciplinary in its audience. Authors should expect an article processing charge to be part of an open-access arrangement of this kind, but the specific current amount for this journal was not publicly disclosed in the sources consulted for this profile, and no figure is invented here. Before submitting, confirm the current charge, any waiver or discount eligibility, and whether your institution holds a Wiley open-access agreement that covers the cost, using Wiley's author and open-access pages for this journal — those pages, not any directory summary, are authoritative, and charges and agreements change.

The same discipline applies to licensing and editorial-board details. Wiley open-access articles are published under Creative Commons licences chosen through the publisher's author workflow, with the licence stated on each article; authors should record the licence attached to their own article at publication. The journal is led by professional editors with an academic editorial structure whose current membership should be taken from the journal's board page on Wiley Online Library at the time of submission. This profile deliberately does not list editor names or a licence variant that could not be verified from a fetched official page during research, because a stale name or a wrong licence term is worse than an honest direction to the live source.

Distinguishing This Journal From Its Namesakes

Agriculture publishing is crowded with similar titles, and at least three confusions are foreseeable. Advances in Modern Agriculture is a different journal from a different publisher. Open Agriculture is a separate open-access title from another publisher again. And MDPI's Agriculture is a large, distinct journal with its own ISSN and editorial office. None of those is this journal. The identifiers for Wiley's Modern Agriculture are unambiguous: online ISSN 2751-4102, the Wiley Online Library journal address built on that number, and DOIs beginning 10.1002/moda. An author invited to submit to a journal of this name by email should check those identifiers before engaging, because a young, visible, open-access title is exactly the kind of brand that fraudulent imitators borrow.

Who Should Submit — and What a Strong Submission Looks Like

The journal fits researchers whose work crosses agricultural specialties or levels of analysis: crop and soil scientists with a systems, sustainability or livelihood dimension; agricultural engineers and data specialists building tools for the farm-to-fork chain; biotechnologists whose results carry a field or food implication; agroecologists and agricultural economists studying management, markets or policy for production systems; and food-security researchers working between production and consumption. It also fits innovators with a patent-type contribution and scholars with a timely commentary on the field's direction.

A strong submission here states its cross-boundary contribution early, writes its methods for a competent reader outside the home specialty, quantifies outcomes that matter beyond the bench — yield, profit, nutrient change, risk, adoption — where the design allows, and discusses limits honestly, including how far a result from one soil, climate or farming system should travel. Given the displayed pace of first decisions, authors should also expect fit to be judged fast and should not waste the editor's first reading: a title, abstract and cover note that say plainly what system the paper improves, and for whom, are working parts of the submission, not decoration.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the journal start? Its content on Wiley Online Library dates from 2023, with articles appearing from April of that year. It is a young, online, open-access title, not a converted print journal.

What does it publish? Interdisciplinary research across agricultural science — including engineering, soil science, biotechnology, agroecology, management and economics, bioenergy, farming techniques and food security — in research, review, commentary and patent formats, as stated by Wiley.

How fast and how selective is it? Wiley displays a median of 10 days to first decision and a 38% acceptance rate. Both are platform-displayed figures that can be updated; check the live journal page for the current values.

What is its CiteScore? Wiley displays a CiteScore of 5 on the journal page. Confirm the current figure, its year and category placement in Scopus.

What does it cost to publish? The current article processing charge was not publicly disclosed in the sources consulted for this profile. Confirm the amount, waiver eligibility and any institutional agreement coverage on Wiley's author pages before submitting.

How do I know I have the right Modern Agriculture? Check for ISSN 2751-4102 and DOIs beginning 10.1002/moda on the Wiley Online Library platform.

The Problems the Journal Exists to Address

Modern Agriculture's scope makes most sense against the pressures its prospective authors and readers share. Agriculture must raise output of food, feed, fibre and bio-based materials for a growing population while reducing its claim on land, water and the climate system; it must do so as weather patterns shift, as soils degrade in some regions and labour leaves farming in others, and as consumers and regulators demand traceability and welfare standards that earlier production systems never had to document. No single discipline owns those problems. A drought-tolerant variety is a genetics achievement, a water-management question, an adoption and credit problem for farmers, and a policy question about seed systems — simultaneously. A journal that insists on publishing the whole chain in one place is therefore not being vague about its identity; it is matching its structure to the structure of the problems.

That matching has a readership consequence Wiley states plainly: the journal aims to reach researchers and policy makers from diverse fields. Authors should write accordingly. The specialist core of a paper — its assay, its trial design, its model — must be technically complete, but the framing, the abstract and the discussion should be intelligible to an intelligent reader one discipline away, because that reader is not an accident of open-access distribution; they are the intended audience. Jargon that cannot be avoided should be defined once, plainly. Results should be expressed, where the study allows, in units a farm adviser or a ministry analyst can use, alongside the units a laboratory reader expects.

Four Conversations Visible in the Journal

First, crop improvement and plant science, from the smart-breeding synthesis among its most cited work to transformation protocols and photosynthesis engineering in recent issues. The journal's interest is not in technique alone but in technique pointed at production: breeding and biotechnology papers land best when the path from laboratory result to field trait is addressed rather than assumed. Second, soil, nutrients and remediation — carbon and nitrogen distribution, selenium, nutrient build-up under rotation, and engineered materials that immobilise contaminants. Soil is where agronomy, chemistry and environmental science meet, and the journal treats it as shared ground. Third, systems, data and management, exemplified by the farm-to-fork assessment of agricultural data structures: as sensing, records and supply-chain data proliferate, the standards and gaps governing that data become agricultural science in their own right, with direct consequences for traceability and sustainability claims. Fourth, food and sustainability outcomes — underused crops as functional foods, bioenergy, food security — where the measure of success leaves the field and enters diets, markets and policy.

An author deciding where to send a manuscript can use those four conversations as a map. If the paper advances one of them, or — better — connects two, the fit argument writes itself in the cover note. If it belongs to none, the honest conclusion is that a specialty title will review it with a more exactly matched referee pool, and the author should follow that logic rather than this journal's speed figures.

A Note on Speed, and on Deciding Well

The displayed median of ten days to a first decision will attract authors under time pressure, and fast, professional triage is a legitimate benefit — a clear early answer, even a negative one, returns months to a research programme. But speed should be the second reason to choose a journal, after fit. A paper rejected quickly for fit teaches the author something useful only if the lesson is absorbed: reframe the contribution in genuinely interdisciplinary terms, or take the paper to the specialty venue it was always shaped for. Conversely, authors whose work does fit should not let the journal's youth deter them on metric grounds alone. Citation records are built article by article; the presence of an agenda-setting, widely cited piece in the journal's first year shows what an early, well-placed paper in a rising venue can achieve, and the displayed CiteScore indicates that the journal's articles are, collectively, already being used.

Finally, a word on verification for research managers and evaluators. Because this journal began in 2023, claims made about it age quickly: displayed metrics are updated, indexing positions change, and charges and agreements are revised. Anyone recording its status in an institutional system should date their entry, name the source they checked — the Wiley journal page for displayed figures, Scopus for CiteScore detail, Journal Citation Reports for any impact factor — and recheck rather than copy a previous year's entry. That discipline protects authors from acting on a superseded figure in either direction.

Bottom Line

Modern Agriculture is Wiley's young, open-access attempt at a genuinely interdisciplinary home for agricultural innovation — fast in its editorial handling, broad by design across the natural, economic and social sciences of farming, and unusual in offering a patent article type beside research, reviews and commentaries. Its early record, from agenda-setting questions for the field's future to soil, breeding and data-systems work, shows the model functioning. Authors with work that connects levels of the agricultural system, and who verify the current charges, licence workflow and board on Wiley's live pages, will find a journal built to be read by the mixed audience — researchers, practitioners and policy makers — that agricultural solutions actually need.