Editorial Announcement

JTAF Refines and Expands Its Focus and Scope

A clearer statement of the scientific areas, scholarly expectations, and tropical agrifood relevance expected from submissions to the Journal of Tropical AgriFood.

Why This Update Matters

A clearer scientific identity for JTAF

The Journal of Tropical AgriFood (JTAF) has refined and expanded its Focus and Scope to provide authors, reviewers, editors, and readers with a clearer description of the research areas and scholarly standards expected by the journal.

JTAF provides an academic platform for original research, short communications, and critical reviews on the science, technology, engineering, nutrition, sustainability, and socioeconomic dimensions of tropical agrifood systems. The journal prioritizes work that explains or solves problems arising from tropical biological resources, climates, production environments, supply chains, and food cultures—particularly those of humid, biodiverse, and archipelagic regions.

🌿Tropical RelevanceResearch should demonstrate a meaningful connection to tropical agrifood resources, environments, production systems, value chains, or food cultures.

✦Scientific NoveltySubmissions should contribute meaningful new knowledge, evidence, methods, technologies, or scholarly insight.

✓Methodological RigorStudy design, analysis, interpretation, and reporting should be technically sound, transparent, and reproducible.

↗Wider RelevanceFindings should provide scientific or practical value beyond a narrowly local description or isolated case.

Scope at a Glance

Expanded and More Explicit Scientific Coverage

The revised scope makes JTAF's disciplinary coverage more transparent while retaining a clear focus on tropical agrifood systems. The areas below are presented without numerical ranking or priority.

Science, Technology & Biological Resources

Agricultural Engineering
Engineering principles, machinery, sensors, automation, modelling, irrigation, controlled environments, and energy-efficient systems for tropical agricultural commodities.

Postharvest Physiology and Technology
Postharvest physiological, biochemical, physical, and microbiological changes, together with storage, cold-chain, ripening control, drying, packaging, and loss reduction.

Agricultural Product Processing Technology
Development, optimization, scale-up, and evaluation of processing operations including extraction, separation, fermentation, dehydration, thermal processing, and process intensification.

Food Science and Technology
Food chemistry, physics, microbiology, engineering, formulation, preservation, shelf-life, structure–property relationships, authenticity, and processing performance.

Biotechnology
Microorganisms, enzymes, plant tissue culture and other cell-based systems, omics, bioconversion, fermentation, bioprocessing, micropropagation, and in vitro conservation relevant to tropical agrifood systems.

Nutrition
Nutrient composition, bioavailability, digestibility, dietary quality, local dietary patterns, nutrient deficiencies, and food-based interventions.

Herbal and Natural Products
Scientific characterization, extraction, standardization, stability, safety, and realistic food-related applications of tropical botanicals, spices, medicinal plants, and other natural materials.

Functional Foods
Foods, beverages, ingredients, probiotics, prebiotics, bioactive compounds, and delivery systems supported by evidence linking composition and processing to physiological function.

Sustainability, Quality & Agrifood Systems

Food Security
Availability, access, utilization, stability, resilience, food loss and waste, local-resource diversification, value chains, consumer access, and evidence-based interventions.

Sustainable Agriculture
Resource-efficient and climate-resilient tropical agrifood systems, including biodiversity-sensitive practices, renewable energy, low-input technologies, and measurable sustainability outcomes.

Food Quality, Safety, and Sensory Science
Analytical, microbiological, toxicological, physicochemical, sensory, authenticity, hazard control, quality assurance, and storage-stability studies.

Tropical Biodiversity, Indigenous Resources, and Traditional Foods
Underutilized tropical species, indigenous knowledge, traditional foods and fermentations, including research connecting the distinctive biodiversity and food cultures of Borneo and other tropical regions with reproducible science and responsible value addition.

Food Packaging, Storage, and Distribution
Conventional, active, intelligent, and bio-based packaging; packaging–product interactions; storage systems; transport conditions; cold-chain; and distribution technologies.

By-product Valorization and Circular Tropical Bioeconomy
Conversion of tropical agrifood residues into higher-value foods, ingredients, biomaterials, biochemicals, feed components, or bioenergy through technically and environmentally sound pathways.

Agroindustry, Value Chains, Markets, and Consumer Studies
Management, competitiveness, quality systems, supply-chain performance, technology adoption, consumer behaviour, business, markets, and policy analysis directly related to tropical agricultural and food products.

For Prospective Authors

Check manuscript fit before submission

Submissions should clearly explain their connection to tropical agrifood systems, their scientific contribution, methodological basis, and broader relevance. Authors are encouraged to review the complete Focus and Scope before submission.

Journal Policy

Read the complete JTAF Focus & Scope

Review the detailed scientific coverage and editorial fit criteria before preparing or submitting a manuscript.

Focus & Scope Author Guidelines