An efficient framework for conducting systematic literature reviews in agricultural sciences.

Systematic review has generally been accepted as an effective, more complete, repeatable, and less biased type literature review that can successfully lead to evidence-based conclusions. This study attempts to develop a framework for systematic review with guidelines on how to conduct an effective systematic review for agricultural research. Systematic reviews require more time and effort but they can be used to conduct a comprehensive literature review, identifying potentially eligible articles on primary agricultural research and answering certain focused questions. A systematic review is also conducted as an example to examine whether systematic reviews are used in agricultural sciences. It was found that in the last two decades about a third (N = 29 out of 89 or 32.5%) of the eligible studies, classified as reviews related to agricultural research, are available as free full-text from publisher, while only eighteen of them were finally eligible to be included in this systematic review.