This year, 2024, is the 100th anniversary of the journal Tropical Agriculture which is published by UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Food and Agriculture. In August 1921, the colonial authorities made the decision to close the Barbados based Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies, and to establish the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) in Trinidad at St Augustine. In October 1922, ICTA opened its doors to students in Tropical Agriculture from the UK and its colonies.
Two years after commencing operations, in 1924, the first issue of Tropical Agriculture was published by ICTA at a cost of six pence. For the next 43 years, Tropical Agriculture was a monthly publication. Articles were published on research and the general status of agricultural development by authors in the West Indies and in British colonies in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
There were also articles by scientists based at ICTA and in the UK on more general topics which might be found in textbooks on agriculture. In addition, the monthly issues had sections on market trends for the major export crops, as well as a regular article called “College News” which included sports results from teams representing ICTA, births, marriages, deaths, and information on which of the mainly expatriate staff went off to England by sea for home leave.
In 1960, the second campus of the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) opened at St Augustine and ICTA became its Faculty of Agriculture. In 1962, UCWI gained full university status as The University of the West Indies (UWI). Throughout this period of rapid change, Tropical Agriculture continued as an academic research journal. From the inception of The UWI, the Tropical Agriculture editor has been appointed by the university.
In 1954, the publishing of Tropical Agriculture was taken over by Butterworths in London, but the editorial staff remained at St Augustine. This situation remained until 1992, when the then Faculty of Agriculture took the decision to bring back the publishing of the journal to St Augustine where it has remained to this day.
The last printed volume of Tropical Agriculture was in 2022 and the journal is now in full electronic format. At the same time, the journal became completely open access; making current issues accessible to anybody online without a subscription at journals.sta.uwi.edu/ojs/index.php/ta/index or by searching online for “Tropical Agriculture journal”. A small publication fee is charged for papers to be published. Although current issues are free to read and download, access to archives (from 2019 dating back to 1924) requires online payment.
All submitted papers are subjected to peer review and editing to determine suitability for publication. The disciplines covered by the journal include soils, agro-ecology, environment, geography, crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, post-harvest technology, food and nutrition, agricultural economics, and agribusiness management and extension. Almost all the article authors are from tropical countries, with submissions from around the world.
The editor-in-chief and the staff from the Communications and Publications Unit of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture are responsible for the publication of the journal. They report to a Tropical Agriculture Management Committee chaired by the faculty’s Dean and with membership comprising its department heads. There is also an International Editorial Board of distinguished tropical agricultural scientists from around the globe.
With agriculture in the Caribbean and other tropical countries needing to respond to the challenges of climate change, increased populations, and increasing food prices, research will play an especially important role. Tropical Agriculture is a vehicle to disseminate research findings from scientists to scientists around the world. After a century of publication, Tropical Agriculture has played a significant role in agricultural research, and will continue to do so for many years to come.
