Farmers’ Attitudes Towards the Use of Biomass as Renewable Energy—A Case Study from Southeastern Europe
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The introduction as well as the structure of the paper should be improved and Authors, after the aims of the study, should specify the methodology they apply.
They should shrink the section on "Factors which are not shaped and not significant in the percentage of willingness to sell the straw".
Overall the paper could be interesting, but there are too many numbers that could be transformed in a more fluent description of the data.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer1,
Thank you very much for your comments, we tried to follow your points, for which we hope that will fullfill your requirements; the introduction is now reduced, we specified the methodology applied after the aims of the study, and also we merged the section on „Factors which are not shaped and not significant in the percentage of willingness to sell the straw” and ordered the variables based on their numbers. We also tried to delete a high amount of numbers which we considered as possible to delete. However, we left those that can be more meaningful if they would remain as numbers.
Thank you very much for your supportive comments and positive opinion about our work.
The Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic presented in the manuscript is relevant and fits the scope of the journal. However, there are some minor revisions that need to be addressed.
Major concerns:
It is not clear whether the questionnaire was postal or face-to-face. How the randomness was achieved? Who did the survey? Please provide more information. In the methodology section municipality selection is mentioned. However, it is not reported how many municipalities were taken into account in the end, how many power plants are taken into account based on which you draw you sample in the area of 70 km, how many collected questionnaires per municipality. The manuscript would benefit if a map is provided with selected municipalities and locations of related power plants. The distance selected is also debatable. It is taken from the completely different context (big plane region in Italy) and applied in Kosovo with different geography and road system without being critically addressed. It is also not clear whether these power plants run on biomass or other fuels.
Minor concerns:
Table 2 – number of questionnaires should be mentioned in the title. The same goes for figures. In figures please indicate that numbers presented are percentages.
Percentages presented in figures should not be repeated in the text.
Results of other studies should not be in the results section.
Table 2 is confusing with the percentage column.
The authors use term family size. It would be more precise to use term household size.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer2,
Thank you very much for your critics on the methodology part, below is the text that we added:
"The area does not have any official strategic plan yet on transportation cost and distance for straw as bioenergy. The municipalities were selected throughout regions at a distance of up to 70 km from an energy plant site, similar distance we can find in the study of Giannoccaro [44]. Kosovo is divided into seven regions and 38 municipalities [49]. Our sample was chosen based on willingness of farmers to cooperate; it consists of 6 regions and 4 municipalities within the regions. The following sample sizes based on six regions are: 58; 56; 50; 20; 11; 11 (piece of questionnaire). Throughout this distance (70 km) there are only two power plants, placed in the same place Kosova A and Kosova B in the capital city, which produce electricity from coal lignite, we can also consider the role that pellet producers can have in terms of straw distribution. Due to the absence of knowledge in using the Internet among farmers, the questionnaires were filled out by hand. The data were collected by the researchers through personal interviews, during personal visits to the respondents ’homes, to the respondents’ workplace, and in one of the mill building. Before beginning the interview, each respondent was given a brief idea about purpose of the study (for academic research) in order to take some their time and make the interview."
Except the attitudes of farmers, the study can be limited according to distribution and infrastructure, however the rural areas are not very far from urban roads, we consider that the roads are enough improven and the transport can be done by tractors or other machineries. This requires new research in terms of marketing logistic. We also thank you for the proposed map display, but as the area is politically sensitive, we did not draw one in this case.
Minor concerns:
"Table 2 – number of questionnaires should be mentioned in the title. The same goes for figures. In figures please indicate that numbers presented are percentages."
Thank you very much, we added the number of sample in the title of table 2 and in the figures, the same as we indicated that numbers are expressed % in the figures.
"Percentages presented in figures should not be repeated in the text."
Thank you again, we deleted those persentage in the text which were also in figures, however there were some figures that it was not compatible to put the percentage there (because too norrow), so we explained the percentages on the text.
"Results of other studies should not be in the results section."
Thank you very much for the suggestion, we deleted the results of other studies in the results section!
"Table 2 is confusing with the percentage column."
Based on your recommandation we deleted the percentage colomn on table 2, and also the same percentages on the text.
"The authors use term family size. It would be more precise to use term household size."
Thank you very much, we replaced the term family size as you suggested!
We hope that we fulfilled your requirements based on track changes presented on the paper!
The Authors
Reviewer 3 Report
Detailed comments:
- The current title is written - a Case Study from South-Eastern Europe however the article deals with research conducted in Kosovo. In my opinion the title should be - a case study from Kosovo
- The introduction is too long, it should be shortened
- The authors refer to research conducted in England (eg Glithero et al. [20]) - this is not a good choice. England's agriculture is very developed (high degree of mechanization, dominance of large farms).
Please refer to similar surveys conducted in Poland (in Poland they are more similar to Kosovo - the average farm area is about 10 ha).Brodziński, Z., Kryszk, H., & Kurowska, K. (2014). Market of Producers and Processors of Agricultural Biomass for Energy Purposes. Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, 23(2).Kurowska, K., Kryszk, H., & Bielski, S. (2014, May). Determinants of biomass production for energy purposes in North-Eastern Poland. In Proceedings of International conference “Engineering for Rural Development (pp. 417-422). - There are a lot of repetitions. e.g. lines 317 and 423. In the discussion, content from own research is repeated many times
Author Response
Dear Reviewer3,
Thank you very much for your suggestions, according to your recommendation we shortened the introduction, deleted the content research which was repeated, and also the repetition in lines 317 and 423, during the paper we notices the repetition which are now deleted. With the results of the research, we want to show how farmers think about selling by-products and energy utilization of wheat straw. In the areas of South-Eastern Europe, this thinking is very similar due to the historical background. Due to usage and adaptation options, we have given the current title! Thank you for the papers which you recommended we found them useful for our topic!
Hope after the revision we met your requirements!
Best regards,
The Authors
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I think the paper is ready for publication.
