Determinants and Differences of Grain Production Efficiency Between Main and Non-Main Producing Area in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors try to employ production frontier function to understand the major drivers of China's grain production and technical efficiency in main and non-main production areas. The paper has two major sections: 1) production frontier function, and 2) the technical efficiency function.
In the first section, the authors use total levels of land, capital, and labor to understand the drivers of total levels of grain production. In reality, greater land, capital, and labor inputs naturally lead to greater production, and land is the major endowments in grain production. The conclusion of "land" as the major driver of grain production should not be emphasized as "new" findings. I would suggest the authors either use yield, capital, labor on per ha basis or put more emphasis on the second section -- the technical efficiency function, which should be the major contribution of this paper. Please consider restructuring the paper in a more efficient way. Also, the authors misuse "output" and "yield" a lot. "Output" should be the total production function, but the yield is production quantities per unit of harvested area. In the first section, please explain why to include interaction terms.
The authors' English writing is not quite professional and requires extensive revision. Please see my detailed comments below:
Line 45, please explain which insight that previous literature provides for your research. Please put the citation at the end of each sentence. There is no need to mention the cited papers' author names all the time.
Line 54: the first sentence did not convey any solid meaning. Please explain what "solid foundation" that they provides.
Line 56: "have noticed" not "have notice"
Line 57: it's not succinct to start a sentence with "another point". It is too oral.
Line 58: Use "distinction" instead of "distinguish". "Distinguish" is a verb.
Line73: Use "information above" instead of "above information".
Line 112: remove "have to". You can put the reference [16] at the end of the sentence.
I only listed a few writing issues above. Please check your writings thoroughly.
When you refer to any tables (or figures), please use format “Table 1 (or Figure 1)” by capitalizing the first letter. Please use the word "Figure" rather than "picture". In your tables, please make sure all titles are in the same format -- either capitalize the first letter in each cell or capitalize the first letter of each word in each cell. This comment applied to ALL your tables and figures.
Table 1: Please replace 0/1 with descriptive phrases. Use "ha" instead of "h" for the unit of land.
Table 2: The column name is missing for the third column.
All result tables: Please denote the significance level for each variable.
Table 6: Please denote what the "difference" is.
Figure 2: Capitalize P in word "provincial."
Author contributions: Please capitalize the first letter of first names and last names.
Regression functions: please name each variable intuitively.
Conclusion: Line 358-364 sounds more like "introduction".
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your valuable comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Determinants and Differences of Grain Production Efficiency Between Main and Non-main Producing Area in China” (ID:sustainability-583712). These comments are extremely helpful for improving our manuscripts. We have studied comments very carefully and have made correction in revision mode which we hope meet with positive feedback. The main corrections in the paper and the responses are as follows:
1. Comment: The authors try to employ production frontier function to understand the major drivers of China's grain production and technical efficiency in main and non-main production areas. The paper has two major sections: 1) production frontier function, and 2) the technical efficiency function.
In the first section, the authors use total levels of land, capital, and labor to understand the drivers of total levels of grain production. In reality, greater land, capital, and labor inputs naturally lead to greater production, and land is the major endowments in grain production. The conclusion of "land" as the major driver of grain production should not be emphasized as "new" findings. I would suggest the authors either use yield, capital, labor on per ha basis or put more emphasis on the second section -- the technical efficiency function, which should be the major contribution of this paper. Please consider restructuring the paper in a more efficient way.
Response 1: Thanks to the reviewer for pointing out the inadequacies of our article. In this paper, we use total levels of land, capital, and labor to understand the drivers of total levels of grain production. We totally agree that greater land, capital, and labor inputs would naturally lead to greater production, and land is the major endowments in grain production. But in the paper, we intend to use production function to investigate the marginal contribution of each input to the total grain output, and we use elasticity to measure one extra unit input would bring about the value of elasticity’s change to total grain output. Generally, that the elasticity of land is much higher than capital and labor refers that higher improvement of grain output can be expected by increasing one extra unit of land input than capital and labor. Thus, we think both total levels of inputs and every unit of inputs can clearly present our results. And we strongly agree that the major contribution of this paper should be the second section -- the technical efficiency function and we add more details on this part. Please find it in our revised manuscript.
2. Comment:Also, the authors misuse "output" and "yield" a lot. "Output" should be the total production function, but the yield is production quantities per unit of harvested area.
Response 2: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are very sorry to misuse “output” and “yield” a lot in our manuscript. After understanding the correct meaning of each words, we carefully checked our article again and made correction individually.
3. Comment:In the first section, please explain why to include interaction terms.
Response 3: Thanks for the reviewer's comments. In the first section, we employed translog production function to analyze the drivers of total levels of grain production. In the translog production function, we include interaction terms of each main input variables: total land input (A), total machinery input (M), total fertilizer input (F), and total labour input (L). Given that there is a substitution or complementary relationship exists in these inputs variables mentioned above and the interaction of these inputs would have impact on the grain production. Thus, we include interaction terms in the translog production function to better understand the drivers of total levels of grain production.
4. Comment:The authors' English writing is not quite professional and requires extensive revision. Please see my detailed comments below:
Line 45, please explain which insight that previous literature provides for your research. Please put the citation at the end of each sentence. There is no need to mention the cited papers' author names all the time.
Response 4: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are sorry for the inexplicit expression on the contents that previous literature have provided for our paper. We have perfect our manuscript on this part according to your advice by conclude the specific insight which previous studies have provided, and change the content in line 45 (now, line 44) into “Previous studies on China’s grain production efficiency are mainly focused on the early 21 century and most of these studies attempt to measure technical efficiency with different methods and analyze the determinants of production efficiency based on farm practice at that time [1-3]. However, analysis of technical efficiency do not give a promising picture on China’s grain production. As China’s grain production have experienced a remarkable development over years, these earlier studies are not able to reveal the new situation of China’ s production practice.”
5. Comment:Line 54: the first sentence did not convey any solid meaning. Please explain what "solid foundation" that they provides.
Response 5: Thanks to the reviewer for pointing out the inappropriateness of our article. According to your comments, we perfect our literature review from line 53 to line 68. And by summarizing the foundation that previous studies provided for our paper, we conclude that “All the previous studies have, nevertheless, made a solid foundation on the selection of measuring methods and determinants of grain production technical efficiency for this research.”
6. Comment:Line 56: "have noticed" not "have notice".
Response 6: Thanks for your careful review. We are very sorry to neglect the grammar mistake here and we have changed “have notice” into “have noticed” in line 56 (now, line 72).
7. Comment:Line 57: it's not succinct to start a sentence with "another point". It is too oral.
Response 7: Thanks to the reviewer’s comment. We notice that a sentence starting with “another point” is too oral. So we separately introduced our differences with previous studies. We changed “another point that we differ from others ... between main and non-main production areas in China” into “In this regard, this paper differs from others in two major respects. Firstly, apart from investigating technical efficiency from the aspect of natural conditions and economic development, we add rural labor outflow as a key driver of technical efficiency. Secondly, we notice the distinction of technical efficiency between main and non-main production areas in China.”
8. Comment:Line 58: Use "distinction" instead of "distinguish". "Distinguish" is a verb.
Response 8: Thanks for your careful review. We are very sorry to neglect the grammar mistake here and we have changed “distinguish” into “distinction” in line 58 (now, line 78).
9. Comment:Line73: Use "information above" instead of "above information".
Response 9: Thanks for your careful review. We are very sorry to neglect the grammar mistake here and we have changed “above information” into “information above” in line 73 (now, line 104).
10. Comment:Line 112: remove "have to". You can put the reference [16] at the end of the sentence.
I only listed a few writing issues above. Please check your writings thoroughly.
Response 10: Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We have took your advice to remove “have to” in line 112 (now, line 143) . Also, we put the reference [16] (now, reference 20) at the end of the sentence and we change “take Yao [16] as references” into “Specifically” to introduce the special procedure we employed in this paper.
Thanks for your kindly suggestions on our writings. On the basis of perfecting our original manuscript, we have check our writings and made some improvements in revision mode for your reference. If there are still any problems here, please don’t hesitate to ask us for further correction.
11. Comment:When you refer to any tables (or figures), please use format “Table 1 (or Figure 1)” by capitalizing the first letter. Please use the word "Figure" rather than "picture". In your tables, please make sure all titles are in the same format -- either capitalize the first letter in each cell or capitalize the first letter of each word in each cell. This comment applied to ALL your tables and figures.
Response 11: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. According to the reviewer’s advice, we have checked all the tables and figures and have correct the format of each name of tables and figures by capitalizing the first letter. And we have changed word “picture” into “figure” in the paper. Also, we carefully checked all titles of each table and make sure the format of titles in each cell are capitalized the first letter.
12. Comment:Table 1: Please replace 0/1 with descriptive phrases. Use "ha" instead of "h" for the unit of land.
Response 12: Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. In the Table 1, 0 stands for the non-main grain production area, and 1 stands for the main grain production area. Thus, we change “0” into “Non-main” and “1” into “Main” in the Table 1. And we have changed the unit of land “h” into “ha” in the table 1 and the note below Table 1.
13. Comment:Table 2: The column name is missing for the third column.
Response 13: We are very sorry to neglect the completeness of column name in Table 2. And have completed the column name by adding “Province” and “Abbreviation” in the third column.
14. Comment:All result tables: Please denote the significance level for each variable.
Response 14: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. As the results presented in Table 3 is obtained by using Frontier 4.1 developed by Coelli, which do not provide the “p-value” directly. We denote the significance level according to the “t-value” presented in Table 3 and “χ-value” in Table 4, where “*” indicates the parameter is significant at 10% significance level, “**” for 5% and “***” for 1%.
15. Comment:Table 6: Please denote what the "difference" is.
Response 15: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are sorry for the inexplicit expression on the title of fifth column in Table 6. “Difference” here means the gap of technical efficiency between the main and non-main grain production area. Thus, to clearly express our intention, we change “Difference” into “Gap of technical efficiency”.
16. Comment:Figure 2: Capitalize P in word "provincial" .
Response 16: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We have capitalized “P” in word "provincial" in Figure 2.
17. Comment:Author contributions: Please capitalize the first letter of first names and last names.
Response 17: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We have checked all the names in the “author contributions” part and capitalize the first letter of first names and last names .
18. Comment:Regression functions: please name each variable intuitively.
Response 18: Thanks for the reviewer’s thoughtful advice. We noticed that the names of determinant variables are less intuitive and the reader would confuse about the meaning of each variables at the first time. Thus, we made an adjustment on the abbreviation of determinants in equation (5). After a thoughtful consideration, we change “PAP” into “Per_AP”, “LO” into “Out_L”, “EI” into “IRR” and “GDP” into “Per_GDP”.
19. Comment:Conclusion: Line 358-364 sounds more like "introduction".
Response 19: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. We do agree that conclusion : line 358-364 sounds more like “ introduction”. The content in line 358-364 is meant to introduce the advantage of natural condition and government support on main grain production area. Thus, we decide to move this introduction into the first section (section 1 “Introduction”) to explain the reasonability of the differences in grain output between main and non-main production area and raise the question “ if there is a difference in technical efficiency of grain production between main and non-main production area ?”.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I revised the manuscript "Determinants and Differences of Grain Production Efficiency Between Main and Non-main Producing Area in China" submitted to the Sustainability Journal. The paper is very interesting. However, I have some concerns, which need to be addressed before considering for final publication.
Line 78: I propose to change the name of the section from "Data and Methodology" to "Materials and Methods".
Equations 4 and 5 - use the same font size as in equations 1-3.
Line 170. I propose to change the name of the section from "Results and Interpretations" to "Results and Discussion".
Use more references in the whole section 3. Look for them in MDPI journals as well.
Line 243. Change subsection number to 3.1.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your valuable comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Determinants and Differences of Grain Production Efficiency Between Main and Non-main Producing Area in China” (ID:sustainability-583712). These comments are extremely helpful for improving our manuscripts. We have studied comments very carefully and have made correction in revisions mode which we hope meet with positive feedback. The main corrections in the paper and the responses are as follows:
Comment:Line 78: I propose to change the name of the section from "Data and Methodology" to "Materials and Methods".
Response 1: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. According to the reviewer's opinion, we have made an appropriate change to the title. We changed the title of section 2 to “Materials and Methods”.
Comment:Equations 4 and 5 - use the same font size as in equations 1-3.
Response 2: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are very sorry for neglecting the consistency of equation font size. According to the comment of reviewer, we have adjusted the font size of equation 4 and 5 as in equation 1-3.
Comment:Line 170. I propose to change the name of the section from "Results and Interpretations" to "Results and Discussion".
Response 3: Thanks to the reviewer’s advice. We do agree and accept your kindly suggestion. After a thoughtfully consideration, we notice that “Discussion” is better than “Interpretations” in a meaningful way. Thus, we have changed the name of section 3, “Results and Interpretations” into “Results and Discussion”.
Comment:Use more references in the whole section 3. Look for them in MDPI journals as well.
Response 4: Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. According to the reviewer's opinion, we have added more references in the whole section 1 “Introduction”, section 3 “Results and Interpretations” and section 4 “Conclusions” to strongly support standpoints and results in this paper. Of course, some of the references is from MDPI journals.
Comment:Line 243. Change subsection number to 3.1.
Response 5: Thanks for the reviewer’s carefully revision. We are very sorry for our incorrect writing of the number in subsection 3. We have took your advice and changed the subsection number to 3.1.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper can be accepted after revision.
The paper need to go through thorough English editing before publication. See my specific comments below:
1. Line 12. main and non-main producing what? This should be main and non-main grain producing area.
2. Line 24. "which was benefit to the intensive use". I don't understand this. reword
3. Line 32. expending grain sown area? do you mean expanding?
4. Lines 57-59. "Another point that we differ from others is that we notice the distinguish of technical...". I dont understand this sentence. reword this.
5. Line 95. payed should be pay
6. Line 101. result is examed? do you mean examined?
7. Lines 104-105. Your equation 4 is mess up. fix this.
8.Line 11. between statistical sources, we have. Nothing is linking this so your thought is incomplete.
9. Line 163. table2 should be written as table 2.
10. Line 164. and 1 otherwise. what do you mean by otherwise. define 1 as you did with 0 instead of saying otherwise.
11. Table 2 is not professional. The the last two columns to the right are showing what? modify this table.
12. Line 173. "..estimated result, we firstly exam. nothing linking the two after comma. exam? do you mean examine? result? do you mean results?
13. Table 3 is confusing and can't be read. adjust this table. Dependent variable: total grain yield by province). What is this. Make this table professional.
13. Line 185. significant? do you mean significantly different?
14. Line 188. "..is an inadequate". Makes no meaning here. reword.
15. Line 189. you mean significantly positive?
16. Line 192. is an inadequate? reword.
17. Line 205. disparate? makes no meaning. reword
18. Line 210. Practise? practice is the right word.
19. Line 12. as 18 above.
20. Line 213. 21 century to cut the rising produce cost? This makes no sense. you mean 21 century in order to cut the high production cost?
21. Line 214. "Thus, the substitute of machinery to...". I dont understand this.
22. Line 219. Input plays a more.. Reword this because this makes no sense.
23. Lines 222-226. This sentence run over. Break this sentence into two. Line 224. preliminary results or findings? simply saying preliminary suggests makes no sense.
25. Line 227. applicant? do you mean application?
26. Make Figure 1 professional.
27. Line 240. delete for and use 'of' instead.
28. Line 246. use comma after overall.
29. Line 250. from 0.746 to 0.858, which rises by 15.03 percent makes no meaning. reword.
30. Line 256-257. I dont understand this sentence. reword.
31. Line 267. Change practise to practice.
32. Line 276. Show from the descriptive statistics is just vague. Use 'As shown'.
33. Line 377. Starting from 49.3 percent to the end of the sentence makes no meaning. reword.
34. Line 280. "Effective irrigation rate, the share of..." makes no meaning. Effecting irrigation rate is a title? if yes use colon after rate and then start your sentence. Effective irrigation rate: The share of effective irrigated area in total..
35. Line 295. Founded? use a right word here. you can use found.
36. Line 313. , and agriculture may be taken seriously.. This makes no sense. reword.
37.Lines 315-318. Reword the long sentence. This makes no meaning.
38. Lines 318-319. 'To some extend, the rising multiple crop index benefits production efficiency". This sentence makes no meaning.
39. Figure 2. The key of the map has strange symbols.
40. Line 336. Province should be provinces.
41. Your conclusion is lengthy and show no logical flow. Sentences were just put together without no connection. conclusion should be concise.
42. Line 349. Applicant? Application right?
43. Line 350. This should read, is reported to be negative.
44. Line 351. Speed? speeding is even better.
45. Line 356. expending should be expanding.
45. Line 380. Data curation? Formal analysis?
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your valuable comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Determinants and Differences of Grain Production Efficiency Between Main and Non-main Producing Area in China” (ID:sustainability-583712). These comments are extremely helpful for improving our manuscripts. We have studied comments very carefully and have made correction in revision mode which we hope meet with positive feedback. The main corrections in the paper and the responses are as follows:
Comment:Line 12. main and non-main producing what? This should be main and non-main grain producing area.
Response 1: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. According to your advice, we have changed “main and non-main producing” into “main and non-main grain producing area”.
Comment:Line 24. “which was benefit to the intensive use”. I don't understand this. Reword.
Response 2: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. According to your advice, we reword “which was benefit to the intensive use” to “In the last two decades, benefited by the intensive use of traditional production input resources and improvement of production efficiency, China’s grain production output has achieved remarkable and successive growth”.
Comment:Line 32. expending grain sown area? do you mean expanding?
Response 3: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are very sorry to make a spelling mistake here, and we have changed “expending” into “expanding”.
Comment:Lines 57-59. “Another point that we differ from others is that we notice the distinguish of technical...”. I don’t understand this sentence. reword this.
Response 4: Thanks to the reviewer’s comment. We are sorry for the inexplicit expression on the content here. In order to convey our ideas clearly, we separately introduced our differences with previous studies. We changed “another point that we differ from others ... between main and non-main production areas in China” into “In this regard, this paper differs from others in two major respects. Firstly, apart from investigating technical efficiency from the aspect of natural conditions and economic development, we add rural labor outflow as a key driver of technical efficiency. Secondly, we notice the distinction of technical efficiency between main and non-main production areas in China.”
Comment:Line 95. payed should be pay
Response 5: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are very sorry to neglect the grammar mistake here, and we have changed “payed” into “pay” in line 95 (now, line 128).
Comment:Line 101. result is examed? do you mean examined?
Response 6: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We are very sorry to make a spelling mistake here, and we have changed “examed” into “examined” in line 101 (now, line 135).
Comment:Lines 104-105. Your equation 4 is mess up. fix this.
Response 7: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We have corrected the format of equation 4. Please find it in line 137.
Comment:Line 11 between statistical sources, we have. Nothing is linking this so your thought is incomplete.
Response 8: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We have corrected the sentence “ For the data on machinery ... statistical sources, we have to derive the data required with a special procedure. ” by adding the linking word and we change it into “Due to the data on machinery, fertilizers and labors in grain production are not directly available from the Chinese official statistical sources, we derive the data required with a special procedure [20].”
Comment:Line 163. table2 should be written as table 2.
Response 9: Thanks for the reviewer’s careful review. We have changed “table2” into “table 2.” in line 196.
Comment:Line 164. and 1 otherwise. what do you mean by otherwise. define 1 as you did with 0 instead of saying otherwise.
Response 10: Thanks for your comment. In the Table 1, 0 stands for the non-main grain production area, and 1 stands for the main grain production area. Thus, we change “0” into “Non-main” and “1” into “Main” in the Table 1. And also, in the “note” part, we changed “0 stands for the mean value of non-main producing area, and 1 otherwise.” into “Non-main” stands for the mean value of non-main producing area, and “Main” stands for the mean value of main producing area.”
Comment:Table 2 is not professional. The the last two columns to the right are showing what? modify this table.
Response 11: Thanks for your comment. We are very sorry to neglect the completeness of column name in Table 2. And have completed the column name by adding “Province” and “Abbreviation” in the third column.
Comment:Line 173. "..estimated result, we firstly exam. nothing linking the two after comma. exam? do you mean examine? result? do you mean results?
Response 12: Thanks for your comment. According to your advice, We have changed “And to ensure the credibility of estimated result, we firstly exam the applicability of stochastic frontier production function to China’s grain production.” into “ We firstly examined the applicability of stochastic frontier production function to China’s grain production in order to ensure the credibility of estimated results”.
Comment:Table 3 is confusing and can't be read. adjust this table. Dependent variable: total grain yield by province). What is this. Make this table professional.Response 13: Thanks for your comment. We have changed “Dependent variable: total grain yield by province)” into “Dependent variable: total grain output”. And We denote the significance level according to the “t-value” presented in Table 3 and “χ-value” in Table 4, where “*” indicates the parameter is significant at 10% significance level, “**” for 5% and “***” for 1%.
Comment:Line 185. significant? do you mean significantly different?Response 14: Thanks for your comment. In this sentence, “all the estimated coefficients in the production function are significant at the 5 percent critical level”, “significant’ here means all the results reject the null hypothesis that the independent variables have no association with the dependent variable. In other word, our results indicate that all the independent variables have strongly connection with the dependent variable in a statistical way.
Comment:Line 188. "..is an inadequate". Makes no meaning here. reword.
Response 15: Thanks for your comment. We reword the sentence “This, in turn, implies that traditional production function which do not take technical inefficiency into consideration is an inadequate model for China’s grain production.” to “ This, in turn, implies that traditional production function which do not take technical inefficiency into consideration is not suitable to analyze China’s grain production practice”.
Comment:Line 189. you mean significantly positive?
Response 16: Thanks for your careful review. We have corrected “significant positive” into “significantly positive”.
Comment:Line 192. is an inadequate? reword.
Response 17: Thanks for your comment. We reword this sentence “Thus earlier research on China’s grain production with C-D function is an inadequate representation of the data.” into “Thus earlier research on China’s grain production with C-D function may not explain China’s grain production practice correctly.”
Comment:Line 205. disparate? makes no meaning. Reword
Response 18: Thanks for your careful review. We have changed “disparate” into “different”.
Comment:Line 210. Practise? practice is the right word.
Response 19: Thanks for your comment. We are very sorry to make a spelling mistake here, and we have changed “practise” into “practice” in the whole passage.
Comment:Line 12. as 18 above.
Response 20: Thanks for your careful review. We have corrected this spelling mistake in the whole passage.
Comment:Line 213. 21 century to cut the rising produce cost? This makes no sense. you mean 21 century in order to cut the high production cost?
Response 21: Thanks for your comment. We have changed the sentence “China’s mechanization in grain production starts in the early 21 century to cut the rising produce cost. ” into “China’s mechanization in grain production, which is meant to cut the rising produce cost, starts in the early 21 century”.
Comment:Line 214. “Thus, the substitute of machinery to...”. I don’t understand this.
Response 22: Thanks for your comment. We are sorry to misspell the word “substitute”, and the correct word is “substitution”. And we means that there is a substitution relationship between the machinery and rural labor force.
Comment:Line 219. Input plays a more.. Reword this because this makes no sense.
Response 23: Thanks for your comment. In order to clear our idea, we reword this sentence into “while the elasticity of labor is higher than fertilizer in non-main grain-producing area”.
Comment:Lines 222-226. This sentence run over. Break this sentence into two. Line 224. preliminary results or findings? simply saying preliminary suggests makes no sense.
Response 24: Thanks for your comment. We break the sentence in lines 222-226 (now, 263-267) into “Moreover, the average elasticity of fertilizer is greatly higher in main grain-producing province than the other. And this finding suggests that fertilizer application to grain production has a great contribution to the 61.03 percent growth rate of grain output in the period of 2001-2017 in the main grain-producing area of China”.
Comment:Line 227. applicant? do you mean application?
Response 25: Thanks for your comment. We are sorry to misspell the word “applicant”, and we have corrected it into “application”.
Comment:Make Figure 1 professional.
Response 26: Thanks for your comment. According to your advice and taking the example in other articles from “Sustainability” for reference, we have redrawn figure 1 in a more professional way.
Comment:Line 240. delete for and use 'of' instead.
Response 27: Thanks for your advice. We have changed “in the case for” into “in the case of”.
Comment:Line 246. use comma after overall.
Response 28: Thanks for your advice. We have added comma after overall in line 246 (now, line 288).
Comment:Line 250. from 0.746 to 0.858, which rises by 15.03 percent makes no meaning. reword.
Response 29: Thanks for your comment. we reword this sentence to “which means technical efficiency rises by 15.03 percent in the sample year”.
Comment:Line 256-257. I don’t understand this sentence. reword.
Response 30: Thanks for your comment. We reword this sentence into “As for the disparity of technical efficiency between main and non-main grain producing area, we found that the gap between them presents a rising trend over years”.
Comment:Line 267. Change practise to practice.
Response 31: Thanks for your careful review. We have corrected this spelling mistake in the whole passage.
Comment:Line 276. Show from the descriptive statistics is just vague. Use “As shown”.
Response 32: Thanks for your advice. We have changed “show from” into “As shown from”.
Comment:Line 377. Starting from 49.3 percent to the end of the sentence makes no meaning. reword.
Response 33: Thanks for your comment. We have reword this sentence to “As shown from the descriptive statistics, the share of primary industry employees in total employment of all industry was dropped from 49.3 percent to 33.1 percent, which was dropped by 32.86 percent. And this finding demonstrates that the greater degree of rural labor force outflow, the higher production efficiency would achieve”.
Comment:Line 280. “Effective irrigation rate, the share of...” makes no meaning. Effecting irrigation rate is a title? if yes use colon after rate and then start your sentence. Effective irrigation rate: The share of effective irrigated area in total..
Response 34: Thanks for your comment. “Effecting irrigation rate” is a title here and we have changed the comma after rate into colon.
Comment:Line 295. Founded? use a right word here. you can use found.
Response 35: Thanks for your careful review. We have changed the word “founded” into “found”.
Comment:Line 313. , and agriculture may be taken seriously.. This makes no sense. reword.
Response 36: Thanks for your comment. We reword this sentence into “and the development of agriculture may be not taken seriously in economically advanced place”.
Comment:Lines 315-318. Reword the long sentence. This makes no meaning.
Response 37: Thanks for your advice. We reword this sentence into “ Consequently, in order to improve grain production technical efficiency in China and narrow the efficiency gap between non-main and main grain production area, effective measures can be considered from improving agricultural product per capita, encouraging labour transfer from agriculture to secondary and ternary industries and enhancing effective irrigation rate”.
Comment:Lines 318-319. “To some extend, the rising multiple crop index benefits production efficiency”. This sentence makes no meaning.
Response 38: Thanks for your comment. We reword this sentence into “To some extent, the rising multiple crop index contributes to higher production efficiency”.
Comment:Figure 2. The key of the map has strange symbols.
Response 39: Thanks for your comment. Does the strange sample you mentioned are the dots in black? If yes, the dots here are used to identify main grain-producing provinces and we use “mp” to stand for main grain-producing provinces in the key of the map.
Comment:Line 336. Province should be provinces.
Response 40: Thanks for your careful review. We have changed “province” into “provinces”.
Comment:Your conclusion is lengthy and show no logical flow. Sentences were just put together without no connection. conclusion should be concise.
Response 41: Thanks for your comment. We do agree your opinion and we have perfected our conclusion parts in the revision mode. Please find it in our revised manuscript.
Comment:Line 349. Applicant? Application right?
Response 42: Thanks for your comment. We are sorry to misspell the word “applicant”, and we have corrected it into “application”.
Comment:Line 350. This should read, is reported to be negative.
Response 43: Thanks for your careful review. We have changed “is reported negative” into “is reported to be negative”.
Comment:Line 351. Speed? speeding is even better.
Response 44: Thanks for your careful review. We have changed “speed” into “speeding”.
Comment:Line 356. expending should be expanding.
Response 45: Thanks to the reviewer for a careful review. We are very sorry to make a spelling mistake here, and we have changed “expending” into “expanding”.
Comment:Line 380. Data curation? Formal analysis?
Response 46: Thanks for your comment. The “Author Contributions” part is generated by the system automatically. If there is an inappropriate expression, please let us know.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the authors' detailed responses to my previous comments. The authors carefully addressed my previous concerns.
