Editorial

This Millennial year sees the ®ftieth anniversary of the ®rst publication of the

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. During these years the journal has

striven to record the highest quality, international, scienti®c research into all

aspects of agriculture and food production. Despite much of the technological

and scienti®c development over this time, and consequent changes in harvesting,

storage, conversion and food production techniques, many of the problems

continue to present a challenge to world scientists.

As an interdisciplinary association, the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI)

seeks to meet such challenges on a worldwide basis by connecting science and

industry. In its role as a learned society, the SCI has published for 50 years the

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, a leading international journal that

covers all aspects of agriculture and food production, with a special interest in

how the methods involved in primary foodstuff production affect the quality of

the ®nal food as eaten by the consumer. SCI also publishes three other leading

scienti®c journals (Pest Management Science, Polymer International, Journal ofChemical Technology and Biotechnology) that also have a strong interdisciplinary

content.

As a Journal whose remit includes reporting on advances at the interfaces of

food and agricultural sciences, the Journal of the Science of Food and Agricultureencompasses many disciplines, being a major forum for the exchange of

information from the leading research teams from across the World. Such an

international interface demands high standards, and the SCI is committed to

maintaining the quality of JSFA into the next Millennium. Indeed our current

Impact Factor (calculated by the Institute for Scienti®c Information) places

JSFA in the top ®ve agriculture/food journals in the world. The Journal is found

in most important libraries on every continent, with its past issues forming an

important resource and archive of continuing relevance to the agricultural and

food research communities. In concert with our parent organisation, the Editors

of JSFA are always looking to the future, sensitive to the needs of our subscribers

and our submitting authors. We aim to make the best use of current and future

print and electronic communication technology, in partnership with John Wiley,

to continue to ensure that JSFA is widely accessible to all who would bene®t from

its contents.

Through this Millennial year, the Journal plans a series of special features to

celebrate both the Millennium and our anniversary. In particular we propose to

publish a series of critical commentary reviews that will both analyse progress in a

®eld and suggest important directions for progress into the new Millennium. As

Editors we are excited by these developments. We hope that you, too, will share in

the excitement appropriate to the new Millennium.

Rodney Dowdell David S Reid

Co-Editors in Chief

The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture thanks all thosewho have acted as referees of papers in the past year

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture J Sci Food Agric 80:1 (2000)

# 2000 Society of Chemical Industry. J Sci Food Agric 0022±5142/2000/$17.50 1