For Authors

Instructions for authors

The journal does not have article submission charges and article processing charges (APCs).

All submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism using iThenticate before reviewing process.

Along with submitting the paper (as the Word.docx file), authors must provide the following signed forms: Author statement and Conflict of interest statement. Authors should also send a Cover Letter along with the aforementioned documents. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, they shall also provide a signed Open Access License Agreement. All these files should be sent to the following email address: contagri@polj.edu.rs.

The papers which are not in accordance with these instructions will be returned to the authors.

Note: Up to Volume 73, the CC BY NC ND 3.0 license was used. Starting from Volume 74, articles will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Thank you for considering this journal as a venue for your scientific paper.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

AIMS & SCOPE

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Contemporary Agriculture is the official journal of the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture, Serbia. Established in 1953, the journal has been a key publication in the field of agricultural science. Initially published under the name Poljoprivreda Vojvodine (1953–1959), it was later known as Savremena poljoprivreda (1959–2015) before adopting its current title, Contemporary Agriculture, in 2016.

The journal Contemporary Agriculture is an open access scholarly journal dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of knowledge about the progress of research in all areas of theoretical and applied agricultural science, covering a wide range of agricultural topics: Agronomy and Plant Science, Animal Science, Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural Engineering, Soil Science, Water and Irrigation Management, Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Environmental and Ecological Studies and Landscape Architecture.

The journal publishes research articles, reviews, short communications and case reports. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. It is open to all researchers globally, regardless of gender, career stage or ethnic and religious affiliation.

All papers are published in English and are subject to a double-blind peer review process (with at least two independent reviewers) to maintain high academic standards. The journal publishes one volume with four issues per year.

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Main text: Letter, Portrait Orientation, single spacing, all margins 2.5 cm, Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify. No pagination. The paper must contain following sections: Title (with author names, affiliations and e-mail of corresponding author), Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion (or optionally choose to divide Results and Discussion), Conclusions. There is no restriction on the number of pages for the paper.

Use italics to indicate genera, species and subspecies (e.g. Zea mays, Cucurbita spp.), but not for higher levels of taxonomic classification (e.g. Poaceae). Note that modifiers to species’ names (e.g. var., spp.) and species authorities (e.g. Rubus L.) are not italicized. Cultivar names in the manuscript text (but not in tables or figures) should be included between inverted commas (e.g. 'Fragrant Frayla'). Decimal numbers should be written with a point (e.g. 2.65; 0.55). When using thousands, please do not use a spacing separator (e.g. 1,000,000.00; 27,500; 35,450.60). The International System of Units and standard abbreviations of units and symbols should be used (e.g. 2.3 kg/m2, 0.105 mg/ml). Always give temperature in Celsius with space between number and unit (e.g. 35.5 °C). Use “percent” (never “per cent”) rather than the symbol % in text (e.g. …increased by 16 percent in the last quarter). In tables and figures, use the symbol with no space between the number and the symbol (e.g. 16%). Write formulas in Word document using the option Insert>Equation.

Subtitles: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, bold, with a single space below the previous paragraph.

Title: Times New Roman, 14 pt, Centered, bold, UPPERCASE. Concise and informative. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Author Names: Times New Roman, 12 pt, centered, bold, Capitalize Each Word, with a single space below the paper title. Please clearly indicate the given full name/s and surname/s of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. The names and surnames of all authors are written in the original form with diacritical signs.

Authors' Affiliation: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Centered, regular. List all authors' affiliation addresses beneath their names. Please indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. If the author or some co-author belongs to different institutions, these should be separated by numbers (1, 2, 3). Give the full name of the institution, postal code, street and number, and the country, in which the author and co-authors are employed. If one of the (co)authors is employed by multiple affiliations, each affiliation must be listed with a different number and these numbers must be placed after the name and surname of that author.

Corresponding author: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Centered, regular. Clearly indicate who will be in charge for correspondence at all stages of refereeing, publication and post-publication processes. Indicate the name of the corresponding author using mark * (in superscript), above the name of the corresponding author and give the e-mail of corresponding author below the authors' affiliation.

Abstract: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, italic, 300 words maximum, with a single space below the affiliation. The summary presents the basic objective, the material and the method of the study, the significant results and the conclusion.

Key words: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, italic, minimum 3 and maximum 6 words separated by a comma, with a single space below the summary. Try to avoid repeating words from the title of the paper.

Abbreviations: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, regular, separated by a semicolon, with a single space below the key words and before Introduction section. The order of abbreviations should be arranged according to the alphabetical order. Abbreviations must be defined at their first mention in the text of the paper. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the paper.

Introduction: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, regular, with a single space below the chapter title.

Material and methods: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, regular, with a single space below the chapter title. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

Results and discussion (or optionally choose to divide Results and Discussion): Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, regular, with a single space below the chapter title.

Table: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Centered. The table's title should be placed above the table without a space between them. Table must have horizontal separation lines only; no vertical lines. A table header row should be written in bold. The table legend should be given inside and at the end of the table (in the last row), 9 pt. Statistical significance values ​​should be indicated, in the table, in superscript lowercase letters or asterisks (*, **) and explained in the legend. Acceptable file formats for tables is Microsoft Word.

Illustrations: All illustrations must be legible and clear. The illustration's titles (figures, graphs, photos, drawings, etc.) should be placed below them without a space between them, Times New Roman, 10 pt, Centered. All figures should be of a high quality (preferably no less than 300 dpi) in PNG, JPEG, GIF or TIFF formats.

All illustrations and tables should be inserted into the main text of the manuscript close to their first citation and must be numbered following their order of appearance (e.g., Figure 1, Table 1, Figure 2, Table 2, etc.). Each table/s and illustration/s must be mentioned in the text of the paper.

Conclusions: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify, regular, with a single space below the chapter title.

Authors' Contribution: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. For articles with several authors, their individual contributions must be provided. Please see the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation.

The following statements should be used (with the author initials) "Conceptualization: X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology: X.X.; Software: X.X.; Validation: X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis: X.X.; Investigation: X.X.; Resources: X.X.; Data Curation: X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation: X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing: X.X.; Visualization: X.X.; Supervision: X.X.; Project Administration: X.X.; Funding Acquisition: Y.Y.”

Funding (optional): Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. In case the research presented in the paper was funded by a research project or some other institution, all detailed information about the funder should be provided (the name of the project, register number, duration of the project “from – to” and the full name of the institutions financing the project). All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed.

Data protection issues (optional): Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. Research involving animals, human subjects or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate Ethics Committee. The identity of the research subject should be anonymized whenever possible. For research involving animals or human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian). Please, add “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals.

Data Availability Statement: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. You might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any data. A ‘Data Availability Statement’ provides the details about the data's availability, including the DOI linking to it. For more information, please see sample statements at https://jie.yale.edu/datastatements and specify what applies to your work and data.

Acknowledgements: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in Acknowledgements. Also, if person/s other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section.

Authors' ORCID iDs: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. Provide the full names and surnames, and ORCID numbers of all authors (as a hyperlink; for example https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000).

Conflict of interest: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular. Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the following standard statement should be added: “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.”

References: Times New Roman, 9 pt, Justify, regular, with a single space below the chapter title. The order of references should be arranged according to the alphabetical order without numbering. All references cited in the text of the paper must be listed in the References section, and vice versa. If the reference is in one of the languages other than English (e.g. Serbian, Croatian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, etc.), provide a translated title [in square brackets] following the original language title.

The author-date system is used to reference source material. If you have any doubts regarding how to cite references, see the FAOSTYLE file. Authors are encouraged to use bibliographic software, such as EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks, and Zotero, which can facilitate the generation of citations and bibliographic entries, and avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. The FAO bibliographic style in Citation Style Language (CSL) is available for use with Zotero. Since Zotero uses two citation styles (based on FAOSTYLE), please use the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations citation style for the author–date referencing system (please see). Please, do not use the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (numeric) citation style used for the endnote referencing system.

Citing works in the text of the paper

For in-text citations, the author’s name is followed by the year of publication of the source. Generally, in-text citations should be organized alphabetically, chronologically, in order of presentation, or in order of importance and should be consistent within the document.

In-text citations should be presented as follows:

• one work, one author:

… as demonstrated by Sanders (2008) or … as the study demonstrated (Sanders, 2008).

 • one work, two authors:

… has been demonstrated in a recent report (Costa and Gilles, 2016).

• one work, up to three authors:

… according to a recent report (Sanders, Cohen and Bolbol, 2010).

• one work, more than three authors unless there are multiple sources with the same first author and year, in that case, provide a clear distinction between different sources:

… as stated in a recent survey (Sanders et al., 2011).

• more than one work by different authors:

… as various studies demonstrate (Sanders, 2008; Murguía, 2010; Bekele et al., 2007).

• more than one work by the same author:

(Sanders, 2001, 2004, 2009a, 2009b)

• different authors with the same surname:

(Sanders, J., 2009; Sanders, B., 1999)

• edited works:

(Sanders, ed., 2008) or according to Sanders (ed., 2008)

• when referring to a source cited within another source (indirect reference, or secondary source), refer to the one you consulted, not the original:

… as demonstrated by Sanders (cited in Murguía, 2008).

Citing references in the References section

Under the References section, the list of references is alphabetical. The list is alphabetical by author’s surname; then by co-authors’ surnames (independent of the number of co-authors); then chronologically in ascending order by publication date (oldest first, e.g. 2019 before 2021). Where there are two or more titles by the same author in the same year, distinguish the sources from each other by using a, b, c, etc. as necessary after the year. The lettering is determined by the order in which the works are first cited in the text, with the first work mentioned being assigned the letter a (e.g. 2008a).

Some examples of bibliographic style:

• Online publication:

Author. Year of publication. Publication title. Series title, Series number. Place of publication, Publisher. URL

• Print publication:

Author. Year of publication. Publication title. Series title, Series number. Place of publication, Publisher.

• Website or webpage:

Author. Year of publication, or n.d. if not known. Web page title. Text by Surname, Initials. In: Website identity. [Cited DD Month YYYY]. URL

• Database:

Author. Year of last update. Name of database: Name of dataset OR Name of database. [Accessed on DD Month YYYY]. URL. Licence: CC Licence.

List of some reference examples:

• Journal article:

Acciaresi, H.A. & Guiamet, J.J. 2010. Below- and above-ground growth and biomass allocation in maize and Sorghum halepense in response to soil water competition. Weed Research, 50(5): 481-492. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3180.2010.00794.x

Kunc, N., Hudina, M., Osterc, G. & Grohar, M.C. 2024. Determination of volatile compounds in blossoms of Rosa spinosissima, Rosa pendulina, Rosa gallica, and their cultivars. Agriculture, 14(2): 253. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14020253

• Book:

Takhtajan, A. 2009. Flowering plants. Second edition. Springer Dordrecht.

Sambrook, J. & Russell, D.W. 2001. Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual. Third edition. Cold Spring Harbor, NY, CSHL Press.

• Book or Monography chapter:

Hogue, C.W.V. 2001. Structure databases. In: A.D. Baxevanis & B.F.F. Ouellette, eds. Bioinformatics. Second edition, pp. 83–109. Life Sciences Series. New York, NY, Wiley-Interscience.

• Thesis:

Arnason, R. 1984. Efficient harvesting of fish stocks: The case of the Icelandic demersal fisheries. Vancouver, Canada, University of British Columbia. PhD dissertation.

• Series title:

Bartley, D.M. & Leber, K.M., eds. 2004. Marine ranching. FAO Fisheries technical paper, No. 429. Rome, FAO.

• Database:

FAO. 2021b. FAOSTAT: Crops. [Accessed on 1 March 2021]. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• E-book:

FAO. 2022. Food outlook – biannual report on global food markets. Food outlook, November 2022 [.mobi edition]. Rome. [Cited 15 December 2022]. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cc2864en

• Proceedings:

Ruane, J., Mba, C. & Xia, J., eds. 2022. Proceedings of the global conference on green development of seed industries, 4–5 November 2021. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc1220en

• Conference presentation:

Tung, D.X. 2005. Smallholder poultry production in Vietnam: marketing characteristics and strategies. Conference presentation at does poultry reduce poverty? A need for rethinking the approaches, 30–31 August 2005. Copenhagen, Network for Smallholder Poultry Development.

• Edited book with chapter authorship; citing a different chapter within the book:

Grant, S., Nener, J., MacDonald, B., Boldt, J., King, J., Patterson, D., Robinson, K. & Wheeler, S. 2021. Canadian Fraser River sockeye salmon: a case study. This volume, chapter 16.

• Website:

IMO (International Maritime Organization). n.d. IMO. [Cited 15 February 2017]. https://www.imo.org

IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). 2024. [Cited 13 January 2025]. https:/www.iucnredlist.org/

• Webpage:

World Bank. 2019. Understanding poverty. In: The World Bank. Washington, DC. [Cited 3 April 2019]. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overviewl

Musk, E. 2006. The secret Tesla motors master plan (just between you and me). In: Tesla Blog. [Cited 29 September 2016]. https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me

See the FAOSTYLE Citations Guide for more detailed information.

Supplementary Materials: Times New Roman, 10 pt, Justify. We encourage authors to share Supplementary Materials (text, data tables, high-resolution images, spreadsheets, formulae, equations, software applications, background datasets, large appendices, etc.) that cannot be included in the article. Every supplementary material should be sent as separate file with the paper when submitting. Each Supplementary Material file must have title (e.g. Supplementary Material 1, Supplementary Material 2, etc.) and must be mentioned in the text of the paper.

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Please note:

The journal Contemporary Agriculture also accepts preprints. Please note that posting of preprints on preprint servers or repositories is not considered prior publication. Authors should disclose details of preprint posting upon submission of the manuscript. This must include a link to the location of the preprint. Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version on the preprint server/repository to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.