About us

California Agriculture is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal reporting research, reviews and news on California’s agricultural, natural and human resources. The journal's first issue was published in December 1946, making it one of the oldest, continuously published, land-grant university research publications in the country.

The journal is published by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). In recent years, roughly 75% of authors have been affiliated with UC ANR, though, authors from other institutions are encouraged to submit manuscripts, and author affiliation is not considered in our review process. UC ANR authors include UC ANR Cooperative Extension (UCCE) advisors and specialists, as well as faculty and researchers in the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources, the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the UC Riverside College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

In 2018, California Agriculture was awarded first place for a periodical by ACE (http://aceweb.org), the national association for agricultural extension communicators, in its annual competition. 

Impact Factor

In the 2020 InCites Journal Citation Report, the two-year impact factor for California Agriculture was 1.49 and the five-year impact factor was 1.68.

Indexing

The journal is indexed by AGRICOLA; the California Digital Library (eScholarship); Web of Science; the Directory of Open Access Journals; EBSCO (Academic Search Complete); Elsevier; and Gale (Academic OneFile). It has high visibility on Google and Google Scholar searches.

Audience

California Agriculture publishes refereed original research, and reviews of the same, in a form accessible to a well-educated but non-specialist audience. To serve this audience, all accepted manuscripts are edited by journal staff.

In the last readership survey, of the 9,055 subscribers reporting an occupation, 38% worked in agriculture or natural resources (private sector); 31% held university-affiliated faculty, research or extension positions; and 15% worked in government, including agency researchers as well as elected officials and staff. In addition, 3% worked in primary or secondary education, 2% were members of the news media, and 11% had other jobs.

Letters, comments, and suggestions

The editorial staff of California Agriculture welcomes your letters, comments and suggestions. Include your full name and address. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.

Peer-review policies

Manuscripts submitted to California Agriculture undergo anonymous peer review. We forward each submission to the appropriate Associate Editor, who makes an initial determination of its scientific soundness and suitability for California Agriculture's audience. The Associate Editor then sends the article to two qualified reviewers. If the first two reviews are affirmative, the article is accepted. If one is negative, we send the manuscript to a third reviewer. The final decision is made by the Executive Editor in consultation with the Associate Editor.

Rejection rate

In the past 5 years, roughly one-third of submitted papers that have entered our review process have been rejected. Approximately half of submissions are rejected by the editors without peer review due to a mismatch with the journal's scope or clear weaknesses in the manuscript's research or presentation.  

Permissions

California Agriculture is an open access journal and allows users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of all articles, subject to the following terms:

Photographs:

To request permission to reprint a photograph published in California Agriculture in print or online, please complete the UC ANR Permissions Request Form (http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=5147). Permissions requests are considered on a case-by-case basis. In most instances, UC ANR will grant a reprint permission request if the photo is copyright UC Regents and the request is for a non-commercial purpose.

All other material:

Material published in California Agriculture, excluding photographs, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/#). Material may be copied and redistributed freely under the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
• When attributing, please credit California Agriculture, University of California, citing volume and number, or complete date of issue, followed by page numbers. Indicate ©[year] The Regents of the University of California. 

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.