Announcement on Standardizing AIGC Usage and Testing Standards for Manuscripts of Smart Agriculture
To strictly abide by research integrity and academic norms, eliminate paper homogenization, academic distortion and insufficient innovation caused by the abuse of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC), adhere to the academic quality bottom line of the journal, maintain a sound academic ecosystem, and guarantee the originality, innovation and academic rigor of published papers, this journal issues the following announcement on AIGC testing standards and management requirements for manuscripts based on actual operation conditions:
1. AIGC Compliance Testing Standards
From the date of this announcement, the full-text AIGC proportion of all manuscripts submitted to , including original research papers, reviews and experimental reports, shall not exceed 20%. The testing scope covers all text contents such as titles, abstracts, keywords, main texts, conclusions and discussions.
– AIGC proportion ≤ 20%: Compliant, eligible for formal external review and re-review procedures;
– 20% < AIGC proportion < 30%: Returned for revision in the preliminary review stage, and re-testable after improvement;
– AIGC proportion ≥ 30%: Non-compliant, rejected directly.
2. Boundaries of Rational AIGC Usage
Authors are moderately permitted to use AI tools for auxiliary work, limited to non-creative and non-core academic links including literature retrieval, grammar proofreading, format standardization and basic data sorting.
Core academic contents of papers, including research ideas, experimental design, data analysis and demonstration, innovative viewpoint extraction and conclusion summarization, must be independently researched and written by authors. It is strictly prohibited to use AIGC tools to generate main body contents, core discussions, research conclusions and innovative viewpoints of papers; to generate full or large segments of manuscript content via AIGC; or to evade testing by splicing and fine-tuning AI-generated texts.
3. Full-process Testing and Verification Mechanism
This journal has established a regular AIGC testing mechanism. All submitted manuscripts must complete professional AIGC compliance testing in the preliminary review stage before external review, and the test results serve as core basis for manuscript evaluation. Random re-inspection will be carried out for revised manuscripts and accepted manuscripts pending publication to avoid a large number of newly added AI-generated content during revision.
The editorial department will conduct special manual rechecks for manuscripts with abnormal test data, excessive AIGC proportion, highly homogeneous sentence patterns, templated logic and suspected batch AI generation, so as to accurately identify the creation authenticity and academic compliance of manuscripts.
4. Handling Measures for Non-compliant Manuscripts
(1) Manuscripts with AIGC proportion ≥ 30% in preliminary test will be directly rejected and excluded from subsequent review procedures.
(2) Manuscripts with excessive AIGC proportion, deliberate testing evasion or large-area AI generation found in external review, re-review and proofreading stages will have their review and publication procedures terminated immediately and acceptance qualifications revoked.
(3) Authors who repeatedly submit AIGC-excessive manuscripts, deliberately modify texts to evade testing, or submit manuscripts with severely excessive AI-generated content and no substantive academic innovation will be included in the journal’s academic integrity early warning list and restricted from future submission.
(4) Severe academic misconduct such as full AI ghostwriting will be recorded in the academic integrity file, and a formal notification will be delivered to the author’s affiliated institution when necessary.
5. Relevant Requirements and Explanations
Academic innovation is the core value of scientific research papers, and independent creation is the basic principle of academic research. All authors are requested to strictly abide by academic norms and the provisions of this announcement, use AI auxiliary tools rationally and compliantly, adhere to the original intention of scientific research, carry out original research based on scientific practice, and avoid over-reliance on and abuse of AIGC tools for paper creation.
Authors shall take the initiative to truthfully state the scope and degree of AIGC usage during submission. Authors who disagree with the test results may appeal to the editorial department for final judgment by the manual recheck expert group.
This journal will continuously strictly control manuscript academic quality, implement regular AIGC testing and academic integrity verification, strive to maintain a rigorous, pure and fair academic publishing environment, and promote the high-quality development of academic research.
This announcement shall come into force on the date of issuance. All previous relevant provisions inconsistent with this announcement shall be subject to this document.
Editorial Department of Smart Agriculture
June 24, 2026
Statement on Standardizing Peer Review Behaviors and Prohibiting AI-assisted Review for Smart Agriculture
To strictly abide by academic review norms, adhere to the bottom line of research integrity, guarantee the academic quality and review credibility of the journal, and eliminate problems such as content distortion, judgment deviation, missed detection of academic misconduct and formalistic review caused by artificial intelligence (AI) tools in peer review, this journal aims to maintain a fair, impartial and rigorous academic review order and ensure the professionalism, authenticity and seriousness of manuscript evaluation. The official announcement on prohibiting external reviewers from using AI tools is hereby issued as follows:
1. Explicit Prohibitions
From the date of this announcement, all external reviewers of are strictly prohibited from using any AI tools, software or platforms (including but not limited to AI text analysis, AI duplication checking and polishing, AI intelligent review and AI opinion generation tools) to assist or replace manual peer review. All review procedures, including overall manuscript evaluation, academic value judgment, innovation identification, defect sorting, review comment writing, and acceptance/rejection suggestion formulation, must be completed independently and manually by the reviewers. It is forbidden to generate, modify or simplify review comments via AI tools, or replace personal academic judgment with AI technology.
2. Adhere to Original Aspiration and Academic Norms of Peer Review
External peer review is the core link of journal academic quality control, which relies on reviewers’ professional accumulation, research experience and academic judgment in the field of smart agriculture. AI tools have inherent shortcomings such as outdated data, insufficient professional adaptability, lack of in-depth cognition in subdivided smart agriculture fields, homogeneous output, and inability to identify research innovations and subtle academic flaws, which cannot replace the professional judgment of industry experts. All external reviewers shall earnestly perform their review duties, uphold the principles of objectivity, impartiality, preciseness and pragmatism, carefully read the full text of manuscripts, and accurately evaluate the academic innovation, scientific rigor, application value and deficiencies of manuscripts based on cutting-edge progress and industry standards of smart agriculture. Review comments shall be authentic, specific, professional and targeted, and templated, homogeneous and empty review results are strictly prohibited.
3. Standardize Peer Review Procedures
All external reviewers shall complete the entire review work independently and take full responsibility for the authenticity, professionalism and objectivity of the issued review comments. Review comments shall be closely combined with the research content of manuscripts, specifically pointing out the innovations, existing problems, revision directions and academic flaws of papers, and generic templated comments without substantive content are not allowed. This journal will establish a regular verification mechanism for review comments, and conduct special rechecks and screening for comments with homogenization, stereotyped content, lack of professional pertinence and suspected AI generation.
4. Implementation of Violation Accountability Mechanism
Once it is verified that an external reviewer uses AI tools for review or generates review comments via AI, the current review results of the reviewer will be immediately invalidated, and no review remuneration will be paid. Subsequent disciplinary measures including warning, suspension of review qualification and removal from the reviewer database will be adopted according to the severity of violations.
Academic review values truth-seeking, preciseness and professionalism. All external reviewers are requested to attach great importance to the seriousness and importance of peer review, strictly abide by the provisions of this announcement, consciously resist AI-assisted and AI-replaced review behaviors, adhere to academic original intentions and review norms, jointly maintain the academic purity and industry credibility of , and promote the high-quality development of academic research in China’s smart agriculture field.
This announcement shall come into force on the date of issuance.
Editorial Department of Smart Agriculture
June 24, 2026
