The Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender) is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality and original research. All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert reviewers.

Criteria for consideration of an article

• Make an important contribution to the field of gender, agriculture and food security and that provide solid gender analysis of key issues in the agriculture sector
• Use either or both qualitative or quantitative gender analysis methodologies to describe the differences in the needs, roles, statuses, priorities, capacities, constraints and opportunities of women and men or the impacts of agriculture and food security related interventions on men, women and on gender roles and relations.
• Are either descriptive or analytical as long as they adhere to the principles of sound gender analysis.
• Are not under consideration in other journals or in in press. Articles that have been previously published as institutional working or discussion papers are welcome.
• Build upon and adequately reference the appropriate literature
• Are oriented to the journal's international audience

All manuscripts must conform to the journal's editorial policies, conditions of submission, and style guidelines. Articles should be written as clearly and as concisely as possible, with the goal of broad accessibility to an audience of economists, sociologists, researchers and practitioners working in the field of agriculture and food security.

Preparing your article

Content

Article length
Agri-gender asks authors to strive to keep their articles below 10,000 words

Title

Ensure the title is concise and appealing. While the title should reflect the content of the paper, it should not reflect every aspect of the paper. Further details can be fleshed out in the abstract. Titles should clarify if the study is in a specific country or region, For example "Sex for fish: An investigation of the transactional behavior of men and women in the fisheries sector in Malawi". Avoid abbreviations and overly technical terms in the title.                   

Abstract

The abstract should argue for the paper's importance and make a case for international and broad interest beyond specific subfields. The abstract should highlight the problem being addressed, the key objective of the study, broad methodology used and key highlights of the results and implications of these results.
A good abstract should avoid broad or oversimplified claims and generalizations beyond those specifically supported by the study. The abstract should be limited to 150 words. Avoid any overly technical jargon and acronyms in the abstract.

Key words

Include at most six key words that best describe the research.

Introduction

The introduction should be focused and to the point. It should address the following key questions

• What is the development problem being addressed and why is it important?
• What are is known about the problem and what are the key gaps?
• What is the research reported in this paper and how does it address these key research gaps?

Literature review

• Contextualize the paper and studies cited for the journal's entire audience, which includes those working in gender as well as those in agriculture and food security.
• Identify the geographic contexts of studies cited and use literature that is as closely relevant as possible.
• Include literature that is both supportive and contradictory to your findings for a balanced view.
• While it is important to cite the key early articles on your topic, ensure that you are up to date on the relevant current literature.
• The literature review section should not be overly long and can be separated into subsections.
• The literature review should identify the key gaps in the literature that your research fills. 

Methodology

• The methodology should be clear and specific. Sampling procedures and data collection methods should be clearly described in enough detail.  
• Variables should be well defined and the unit of analysis should be clear
• Methods for data analysis should be well described

Results

• Present the key results in an organized way, clarifying their importance and relevance. Once you state the results, provide analysis, exploration, for and counter arguments to the results and their implications.

Conclusion

• The conclusions should be drawn directly from the results. What is the importance of the findings and why do they matter?
• In making any policy, program or further research recommendations, be as specific as possible and avoid being vague or making generalized recommendations that do not follow from the findings.

Tables and Figures

• Tables and figures should not be inserted within the pages of the manuscript but rather should be placed at the end of the article after the references. Indicate in the text where these should be placed e.g "Table 1 here".
• Tables should be prepared with the minimum use of horizontal rules (usually three are sufficient) and no vertical rules (if possible).
• Tables should have a caption at the top e.g " Table 1: Average number of livestock owned by men and women in male headed households in Guatemala". 
• The tables should include all of the information necessary to interpret them; they should be able to stand alone. 
• Figures should be in black and white or in colour, captions at the bottom outside the table and legends placed at the bottom. Include the original figures to allow for editing if need be.
• Provide clear, high-contrast, black-and-white or color copies of the images that can be easily reproduced.
• Where photographs or figures are reproduced from an outside source, acknowledgment of source and copyright must be given in the caption.

General style guide

Font and spacing: Submissions, including notes and references, should be single-spaced. Use Times New Roman 12.

Notes: Please keep notes to a minimum. When possible, incorporate supporting arguments or context into the main article. Notes will be reproduced as endnotes. The journal does not use footnotes.

Justification of text: Text should be left justified. Only insert hard returns at the end of paragraphs and headings.

Punctuation: Use a single (not a double) space after a full point and after commas, colons, semicolons, etc. Do not put a space in front of a question mark or in front of any other closing punctuation mark. Please use serial commas (i.e., before "and," "or," etc., in lists).

Spelling: American spelling should be used throughout (analyze, labor, defense, center).

Initial capitalization: Please keep capitalization to a minimum. Where possible, use lower case for government, church, state, party, volume, etc.; north, south, etc. are only capitalized if used as part of a recognized place name, e.g. Western Australia, South Africa. Use lower case for general terms, e.g. eastern France, south-west of Berlin.

Full points: Use periods after abbreviations (p.m., e.g., i.e., etc.) and abbreviations where the end of the word is omitted (p., ed., ch.). Do not use periods in the case of abbreviations for countries or states (e.g. UK, US, EU).

Quotations: Use double quotation marks for quoted material within the text; single quotation marks should only be used for quotes within quotes. Do not use leader dots at the beginning or end of a quotation unless absolutely necessary.  For ellipses within a quotation, use three leader dots for a mid-sentence break and four if the break is followed by a new sentence.

Quotations from research participants: We encourage you to include these to bring articles to life and include the voices of those involved in your work! If these are lengthy (of around a line or longer), please italicise and place them on their own in a separate paragraph. State the research method, place and date where the quotation originated in brackets at the end of the paragraph - as follows:
(Interview, Western Uganda, 31 March 2013)

Numerals: In general, spell out numbers under 10; use numerals for measurements (e.g., 12 km) and ages (e.g., 10 years old). Insert a comma for both thousands and tens of thousands, with no space following (e.g., 2,000 and 50,000). Always use the minimum number of figures for ranged numbers and dates (e.g., 22, 4, 108-9, 1956-9, 112-3, 1924-7). Use the percentage sign only in figures and tables; spell out "percent" in the text using a numeral for the number (e.g., 89 percent).

Dates: Set out dates as follows: July 8, 1990; on July 8; or on the 8th; 1990s (not spelled out, no apostrophe); nineteenth century (not 19th century), and hyphenated when used as an adjective (e.g., nineteenth-century art).

Endnotes and Footnotes: Endnotes should be used only when you want to add information to support a point made in the text, not for References. Endnotes should be handled in the following way: mark manually where an endnote appears within the text with a number in brackets - (7). Type the text of the endnotes in a section headed 'Endnotes' at the end of the article.

Non-English words and phrases: Italicise these, and give a translation in brackets. Use metric measurements (or state the equivalent) and give a US dollar equivalent of other currencies.

Copyright material: It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission to use material which is the copyright of another author or publisher. As a general guide, this applies to all photographs, tables, and figures, and to any significant portion of work.

References

The Journal uses the Havard referencing style. For more information and examples, refer to the guide developed by the University College Dublin on  https//www.ucd.ie/t4cms/Guide69.pdf