The first issue of AJAS was published in March 1988 as the official journal of the Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production Societies (AAAP). The original proposal to create AJAS was submitted to the 4th AAAP council meeting in 1985 followed by the 5th council meeting’s confirmation in 1987 in New Zealand, where Professor In K. Han was appointed by the council to be the founding editor-in-chief of the AJAS, and Professor D. J. Minson (Australia) and Professor R. Kawashima (Japan) were nominated to be associate editors [1].

During the first few years (1988–1994), AJAS published four issues per year; the number grew to six issues in 1995–1998, eight issues in 1999, and twelve issues from 2000 onward. The first volume carried 33 articles and the latest volume carried 230 original and review articles. A more dramatic increase was seen in the number of submissions, which grew from fewer than 50 to 1,000 annually. Such progress was possible thanks in part to increasing research activities in many AAAP countries over the years [2]. AJAS was indexed by SCI in 1997 for the first time, with an impact factor of 0.094; the index rose to 0.971 in 2017, as seen in the following figure. The total number of citations in the beginning was low (fewer than a hundred), and was almost 30 times greater after 20 years. Significant improvements were made during the past three years, a trend expected to continue in the future. Coverage by major international databases and the adoption of open-access policy, together with improved research quality, are considered as major contributors.

Publication of a scientific journal requires considerable effort by many individuals. The first and utmost acknowledgement goes to two previous editors-in-chief: professors In K. Han and Dong A Kim. Prof. Han, the founding editor-in-chief, made especially great contributions to the development of AJAS. He is the type of person with the vision and the ability to play key roles in engineering many master plans. The creation of AJAS was one of these plans. Prof. Han nourished AJAS, both in quantity and in quality, from its outset until 2001, when he stepped down as editor-in-chief to take on a still-more important position: president of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.

Numerous editors, editorial board members, and reviewers have also made outstanding contributions over the last three decades. Of the many editorial members, the late Prof. Phil Thacker in Canada put in great efforts in shaping the editorial policy of AJAS during its early stages of development. We thank our readers and wish them to enjoy comprehensive up-to-date information through both our online system and print version. We also thank all authors who chose AJAS to publish their valuable research work.