JAFSCD’s Consulting Editor Program (CEP) is designed to assist new or non–native English-speaking authors who have an important contribution to make to the agriculture, food system, and community development literature, but whose manuscript fails to meet JAFSCD editorial criteria or has other weaknesses (e.g., poor writing, structure, logic, nonstandard usage of English). Below is an outline of the steps in the CEP process.

Please note that participating in the CEP does not guarantee submission for review. It simply has the potential to increase the chance of the manuscript being reviewed. Also note that JAFSCD and its publisher, New Leaf Publishing and Consulting, while facilitating the consulting editor program, are not directly involved with a CEP contract since doing so would create a conflict of interest.

Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in being added to the consulting editor list or would like to speak with a consulting editor about your draft or completed manuscript.

How CEP Works

STEP 1. Authors who would like editorial assistance contact a consulting editor from the list below directly and include a copy of the manuscript and details such as the following:

(a) the stage of the manuscript (e.g. early draft, completed draft, etc.);

(b) any specific needs of the paper (e.g., light editing, heavy editing);

(c) compensatory arrangements offered (payment, coauthorship, acknowledgement, combination); and

(d) a timeframe.

STEP 2. The consulting editor (CE) conducts a quick review of the manuscript and responds promptly to the author with details on what he or she believes the manuscript requires and what compensatory arrangement he or she is willing to accept. If a fee is required, the CE provides a rate per hour and an estimate of the number of hours needed.

STEP 3. The author responds to the CE to confirm the details of the agreement and carbon-copies (cc’s) Duncan Hilchey ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) on the email.

Keys to a Successful CE Arrangement

•  Clear agreement on terms

• Open dialog and frank disclosure

• Friendly and supportive interaction

• Timely responses and brisk process

• Fair compensation

Consulting Editors Currently Available

Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in being added to the consulting editor list, or would like to speak with a consulting editor about your manuscript.

Sandip Banerjee

Sandip Banerjee would be happy to be associated with the project as a consultant editor. Sandip, from India, has a rich experience in both research and academics. He has a bachelors in agriculture and animal husbandry, masters and PhD in animal breeding and genetics, followed by a course on sustainable agriculture from Wageningen UR, The Netherlands. He has also carried out research with Invermay AgResearch, New Zealand. He has more than 60 research publications to his credit and has been project leader to a couple of international projects. Sandip is presently adviser to 10 MSc. students and is teaching courses pertaining to animal, genetics, animal breeding, livestock production systems, draft animals, and research methods to BSc, MSc and DVM students. He also is associated with commercial livestock farming ventures, organic certification and farming, and contract farming in India with small and marginal farmers. He is concerned about domestic animal diversity and is a regular contributor to FAO, DAD-Net and panel-level discussions. Sandip also is on editorial board of some other reputed journals and is presently reviewing for six international journals. He is presently serving as an expatriate staff with the Department of Animal and Range Sciences, Hawassa University, Ethiopia. Sandip would be happy to assist authors in improving their presentation skills, developing protocols pertaining to developing methodologies, and assisting in analyzing and interpreting data — or with overall project concerns. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Mihaela Begea

Mihaela Begea has experience editing scientific writing and has also assisted with public outreach for food safety and food research in Romania. Currently Mihaela works at the Institute of Food Research Bucharest (Romania) as a scientific researcher specializing in fermentation technologies. She is involved in standardization, consumer protection, certification and accreditation activity in Romania, and is an independent expert evaluator for several European research&development programs. Her key qualifications are food science and technologies, food fermentation technologies, food microbiology, operations and equipment for the food industry, quality systems and control, food safety and quality, standardization, project management, and Food Safety and Quality Management (HACCP). She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Pat Dutt

For nearly 20 years, Patricia Dutt wrote environmental science articles for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She holds a BA and an MS in geology. She is also a successful grant writer and a published fiction writer. Her agriculture knowledge comes from personal experience (she’s a vegetable and fruit gardener), and she writes an edible garden and permaculture blog for a local garden center where she works. Samples of her writing can be found at http://ithacascigrantwriting.info. While working as a science teacher (high school and college) she found that she enjoyed working with others, and she would be honored to work with you. Fees are negotiable. Pat can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Bethann Garramon Merkle 

Bethann Garramon Merkle looks forward to serving as a consulting editor for your project. Bethann is currently an English-as-a-Second-Language instructor, and is a trained artist, educator, and project manager. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, where she focused on sustainable food and agriculture, with supplementary minors in Studio Fine Arts and Wilderness Studies. In brief, Bethann has: 8+ years experience writing and editing articles and publications in a range of topics for a variety of target audiences; 8+ years graphic design and illustration experience; 7+ years education experience (developing education materials, and teaching adults and children about communication, community development, ecology, conservation science, and sustainable life skills); 5+ years experience managing and facilitating community development projects and non-profit organizations, and associated staff and volunteers; working knowledge of French. Bethann is happy to help with editing, as well as additional communication needs including popular articles, illustration and graphic design for articles and other publications, and education materials development.  Price or acknowledgment is negotiable. She can be reached at b.g.merkle (at) gmail.com.

Ken Meter

Ken Meter, president of Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis, holds 40 years experience in community capacity-building as an administrator, researcher, journalist, and educator. His pioneering study of the farm and food economy of Southeast Minnesota, “Finding Food in Farm Country,” helped attract new members to a collaborative of food producers, and led to the creation of a regional investment fund. It also serves as a national model for analyzing rural economics that has been adopted by 59 regions in 26 states across the U.S. His innovative tool for measuring financial assets in low-income communities, the “Neighborhood Income Statement and Balance Sheet,” helped spark development of a Latino Mercado in South Minneapolis and has been adopted by other communities nationally. As coordinator of public process and indicator selection for the Minneapolis Sustainability Plan, Meter led the public process to define a long-term vision and indicators for the city. Formerly, he served as planning commissioner for his hometown.

In addition to Ken Meter’s extensive work in food system assessments of 59 regions in 26 states, he worked extensively as a journalist covering domestic and international agricultural issues. He has filed first-hand reports from 12 nations outside of the U.S., including in-depth coverage in the Philippines and Japan. He taught journalism at the University of Minnesota, and served as founding co-editor of Common Ground magazine.

He taught the economic history of U.S. agriculture, as well as journalism, at the University of Minnesota, and microeconomics to midcareer graduate students at the Harvard Kennedy School, and managed the grant review panel for USDA Community Food Programs. He also writes occasionally for Successful Farming magazine and Grist. Ken can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Nicholas Parrott

I am a freelance journalist and independent English language editor, and editor for Ecology and Farming and Farming Matters. I was the lead author of The Real Green Revolution (Greenpeace, 2002) and several well received and highly cited reports and articles on organic farming, regional foods and rural development. I have a degree in Human Ecology and a Master’s and PhD in Environmental Assessment

For the past ten years I have been working as as independent English language editor, helping academics and NGOs "get the best" out of their material. With a multidisciplinary background, I am able to deal with natural and social sciences and the places where the two meet. While most of my clients are non-native English speakers, my service covers more than just proofreading or editing. It also draws on an in-depth understanding of a wide range of sustainability issues, a keen eye for scientific detail, and an ability to help authors to find the right tone for the audience that they want to reach (be it policy makers, academics or the general public).  

I also have practical experience in JAFSCD’s fields of interest — having worked (usually voluntarily) on organic farms, with distributors, box and CSA schemes, and currently with a community garden project in Brussels, where I am now based. I have previously worked for an author submitting to (and having his paper accepted by) JAFSCD. Details of commissions, clients etc., can be found at www.textualhealing.nl. Contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Antonio Roman-Alcalá

Antonio is happy to provide his services as a consulting editor. Heis an urban farming activist and academic, completing his degree at University of California, Berkeley in the "Cultural Prospects For Sustainability". He writes for the Civil Eats blog (civileats.com), has edited and published his own print publications for the past 10 years, and is a documentary filmmaker; more information on his work (including writing samples) can be found at antonioromanalcala.com. Antonio is also fluent in Spanish, and would be happy to help with translation corrections as well. He can also be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Bobby Wengronowitz

Bobby Wengronowitz would be happy to be a consulting editor for your project. Bobby has extensive experience in academic and professional writing. Most recently, he completed his master of arts in the social sciences at the University of Chicago. His bachelor of arts is in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bobby is working on his PhD. in Sociology at Boston College, where he will examine the social and noneconomic motives for novel community organizational arrangements. Bobby is happy to help with editing as well as methodological, theoretical, or overall project concerns. Price or acknowledgment is negotiable. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

I look forward to help you shorten the time between submission and acceptance of your manuscripts by providing writing supervision and/or by editing your scientific manuscripts. I hold a BSc and a Master of Education in chemistry and biology and a PhD in zoology, comprising physiology, endocrinology, functional morphology, pharmacology, and various laboratory techniques. I was active as a researcher for 20 years, publishing 50+ articles and conference proceedings in internationally renowned scientific journals and I have served as reviewer and editor for various international scientific journals. Apart from three years of pharmaceutical research, my research focused on reproduction in mammals. Although born and raised in Sweden, I am bilingual, having been a permanent resident of South Africa for 10 years, where I was employed as a research scientist/senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. I also frequently worked in Congo Kinshasa, supervising a research project on microlivestock. I am today the owner of Alingo, an enterprise focusing on scientific writing in English.  You can find more detailed information about me on www.Linkedin.com or on my website www.alingo.se Prices for supervision and editing are negotiable. You can reach me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .