Agriculture guest posts and link insertions

What makes a good agriculture guest post

The articles that do well on our blog have one thing in common: they help a specific reader make a decision. An agronomist deciding when to switch from NDVI to a red-edge index. A farm manager weighing a soil moisture probe against satellite moisture data. An exploration geologist working out which parts of a license deserve a field visit. If you can name the reader and the decision in a sentence, you have the start of a good agriculture guest post.

What doesn't work is the generic overview. "The future of agriculture" and "10 benefits of technology in farming" have been written thousands of times, and our readers skip them. Narrow topics with real detail beat broad ones with none. A piece on irrigation scheduling for drip-irrigated orchards in hot, dry summers is far more likely to be read to the end than a piece on "smart irrigation" in general.

If you're pitching several agriculture guest posting sites with the same idea, write a different article for each. We check drafts for overlap with content that's already published elsewhere as well as for plagiarism. Our own roundup of agriculture guest posting sites and blogs shows how different the audiences are, and why one article rarely fits them all.

Topic ideas that fit our readers

These are the kinds of subjects that sit squarely in scope. Treat them as starting points, not titles.

Agriculture and agritech

• Field experience with a precision agriculture practice: variable-rate fertilizer, deficit irrigation, cover cropping, controlled traffic.
• How a farm, cooperative or agritech startup adopted a technology, including what didn't work.
• Climate-smart practices and how their results are measured.
• AI and machine learning in farming, explained for practitioners rather than data scientists.

Remote sensing and GIS

• Comparing vegetation or moisture indices for a particular crop or stage.
• Practical GIS workflows, such as preparing field boundaries or building management zones.
• The limits of satellite data and how to work around them.

Mining and exploration

• How remote sensing fits into early-stage mineral exploration.
• Geospatial data in mine planning, rehabilitation or environmental monitoring.
• Explainers on exploration terminology for non-geologists.

Before you write, search the blog for your topic. If we've covered it, pitch a new angle on it and link to the existing article where it helps the reader.

Structuring 1,500–2,000 words

Within that length you have room for an introduction, four to six sections and a short close. A structure that works for most practical articles:

1. An opening of two or three short paragraphs that states the problem and who it affects. Skip the history lesson.
2. The core explanation: how the practice or technology works, in enough detail that a reader could explain it to a colleague.
3. An example. A worked calculation, a field scenario, a before-and-after. This is the part readers remember.
4. Trade-offs and limitations. When is this the wrong choice? What does it cost in time, money or skill?
5. Next steps the reader can take, in order.

Use descriptive headings so a reader scanning the page can find their part. Keep paragraphs to three or four sentences, and use a list only when the items really are a list. One well-made table, comparing methods or summarizing numbers, is often worth several paragraphs.

Writing accurately about satellite data

Many of our readers work with satellite imagery every day, so errors here get noticed quickly. A few points that trip up writers:

• Get formulas right. NDVI is (NIR − Red) / (NIR + Red), and its values run from −1 to +1. If you introduce another index, give its formula or link to a source that does.
• Be specific about resolution and revisit. The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 mission revisits a location about every five days with two satellites and has 10 m visible and near-infrared bands. Landsat 8 and 9 provide 30 m multispectral imagery.
• Avoid "real time" for satellite monitoring. Satellites capture an area when they pass over it, and optical sensors can't see through cloud. Radar satellites such as Sentinel-1 can, which is worth explaining if your article deals with cloudy regions.
• Distinguish what an index shows from what causes it. Low NDVI tells you the canopy is sparse or stressed. It doesn't tell you whether the cause is water, nitrogen, pests or a planting problem.

If you want a reference point for the level of detail our readers expect, our guide to the NDVI formula and the hub on satellite crop monitoring and remote sensing are good examples.

Writing about mineral exploration

Mining readers are careful about terminology, because terms like "resource" and "reserve" have formal definitions under reporting codes. Under the JORC Code used in Australia, an Exploration Target is a statement of exploration potential, with quantity and grade given as ranges, that is conceptual in nature: there hasn't been enough exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource. In Canada, NI 43-101 sets the rules for disclosing scientific and technical information about mineral projects, and potential quantities and grades can only be given as ranges with a cautionary statement.

In practice, that means a guest article shouldn't describe a satellite anomaly or a geochemical target as a "deposit" or a "resource". Describe what was observed, how it was interpreted and what would be needed to confirm it. Our mining case studies show how we describe Exploration Targets ahead of a JORC or NI 43-101 resource estimate.

Sources, images and attribution

Every statistic in your article needs a source, and the best sources are primary ones: government agencies, research institutions, peer-reviewed papers and official statistics. Link to the page where the number appears, not to an article that quotes it, and give the year the figure refers to.

Your article needs at least one high-resolution image, chart or infographic, with proper attribution. Use images you made or have the right to use, and credit them under the image. Satellite imagery has its own rules. Copernicus Sentinel data is open, but it asks for a credit such as "Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [year]". Landsat data from the US Geological Survey is in the public domain, and USGS asks that it be credited as the source. Commercial imagery usually comes with a license that limits where it can be republished, so check before you include it.

Links

A guest article can contain up to two do-follow backlinks. They should point to resources that genuinely help the reader, such as your research, a dataset or a tool explained in the article. Affiliate, promotional and commercial links aren't allowed. Links to sources you cite are separate from those two and are part of good practice.

Why submissions get turned down

Most rejections come down to a handful of reasons:

• The topic is outside agriculture and mining.
• The draft isn't original, or it overlaps heavily with content published elsewhere.
• The article is under 1,500 words, or well over 2,000 without a reason.
• It reads as an advertisement, or carries affiliate or promotional links.
• Facts or figures have no sources, or the technical details are wrong.
• Images are missing, low resolution or uncredited.

Submission doesn't guarantee publication, so it's worth checking your draft against the guidelines on this page before you send it. Reading two or three recent articles on the blog is the quickest way to see the level of detail our editors look for.