Middle Class, Tradition and the Desi-Realm—Discourses of Alternative Food Networks in Bengaluru, India

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors
The article has been corrected and in my opinion it can be published in the journal Sustainability. However, I suggest introducing references to literature in the introduction, especially where the authors refer to scientific research and scientists.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your approval. We added some references in line 32, which we hope answers to your concerns from the last review round.

Kind regards,

the authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Review Sustainability (Middle class, tradition and the Desi-realm)

Dear authors,

I have seen earlier versions of your manuscript (I reviewed the previous submission) and I think that it has improved a great deal. What you are aiming for with the paper is much clearer now, as is your argument. I like section 2 that you added, and your conclusions seem valid. The methods section is clear, as is the largest part of your results. I also feel that the argument you are making works, and is interesting and relevant.

I do, however, highly recommend a critical reading and ‘rewriting’ of the text. I think that the writing style diminishes the strength of your argument. I know that you are planning on having the text edited, but I am also of the opinion that there are various statements in the text that are hard to follow. Sometimes you make statements that really need a source because I would not consider it ‘common knowledge’. In other cases you need to offer more background information, you need to be clearer about what you are trying to say, or you need to ‘flag’ an argument in the sense that sometimes your statements are coming out of the blue. I have made several comments in your pdf to show you what I mean. As an example, you state that “a trusted relationship is that third party certification can often be problematic”, but as a reader we do not know whether these farmers use third party certification, so we are not sure what to make of such a statement. In a few instances I simply didn’t understand what you meant, and a few paragraphs need some rewriting to strengthen the flow of the reading. Also, in your introduction section, you ‘suddenly’ jump from general information to explaining what you are doing in the paper, even without starting a new paragraph (starting from line 48). It would help the reader if you would made clear that after the general introduction, you are now going to talk about your own work, how you did that and what you did. The sentence starting in line 48 comes out of the blue – that is also why I wondered to what you applied the definition: I wasn’t aware at first that you are now talking about your own work.

I could argue that in the end it is about what you have to say rather than about how you say it, but I do feel that if the paper was a bit easier to read with a bit more flow and fewer ‘loose ends’, the reader would more easily be taken by your argument, which is in itself really interesting!

A final point for consideration is that it seems that large parts of your findings are based upon a small number of respondents. I think that is a bit tricky, also because you make rather critical statements about what is going on in the AFN sector in India / Bengaluru. Maybe you need to be a bit more careful in your claims. Also because I wasn’t always convinced by the particular quotes.

All in all I enjoyed reading this paper because it is very interesting: it gives a view on AFNs in a context I am unfamiliar with, and I appreciate your critical stance. I also think the concepts unreflexive and defensive traditionalism work well. I just think a better flow of the paper would help your readers go along in your arguments.

Hope this helps! (several comments are in attachment)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your comments. We have now made quite some changes in the manuscript again and send it to a professional editing service. We also gave some more detailed answers regarding your comments in the pdf attached.

Kind regards,

the authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Mirka and Christoph,

many thanks for going through our comments. We went through your manuscript and found some typos and noticed that a few rephrasing need to be done. I attach to this message the PDF version with track changes of your manuscript so it is easier to see where changes in the text are needed. 

Thank-you again for your contribution to the Special Issue! 

Best wishes, 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Petr, dear Annalisa,

the manuscript is back from another proof-reading round now. In this response we attached a slightly earlier version. It shows the tracked changes and provides the lines where the changes can be found in the final submission as answers to your comments.

Kind regards,

Mirka

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research addresses a topic that is timely and likely of interest to readers of Sustainability. The authors use a qualitative approach to explore factors that alternative food networks in Bengaluru, India. The research topic is very interesting, and I appreciate the opportunity to review it.

Although the topic is of interest, the manuscript has weaknesses that I believe limit its suitability for publication at this time. My concerns include key methodology omissions, underdeveloped results section, and sub-optimal flow of the manuscript. There are few details provided about the qualitative data collection process and almost nothing written about the analyses methods. There are conclusions provided in the introduction, results in the methods section, and new background information provided in the results and discussion section. In addition, there are minor English language issues throughout the manuscript that should be addressed.

Specific suggestions are detailed below:

Introduction:

Line 28: Organic food production? Line 33: Consider providing more detail about the location of these larger cities. Are they in the north or south? Line 38: The AFN is first mentioned here, but this concept is not clearly explained until two paragraphs later. Consider modifying this so that this key concept is described earlier. Lines 73-80: While I understand that this is discipline specific, I suggests moving these conclusions/results summary to the end of the manuscript as commonly done in health literature. I defer to the editor on this point. Line 81 and Line 122: There are two sections labeled as “2.”

Methods:

Line 123: Provide more detail about what you mean by field stays Lines 123-127: I suggest that you specify what kind of sampling technique was used. How were the interview questions created? Lines 132-133: More detail is needed about the analyses. Was an inductive or deductive process used? Specific details should be provided on how themes were identified. How many researchers were involved in the coding process? Identify which specific software was used. Were any techniques used to improve the validity of the results, such as data triangulation or respondent validation? Lines 134-140: These seem to be results. Recommend moving them accordingly.

Results:

General comment: You may consider creating a table or figure that provides the key themes and example quotes to illustrate the themes. Line 152: What do you mean by circumstances? Lines 164-165, lines 227-231: New background information is provided in the results section. Why isn’t this supportive information introduced in the introduction? Line 187: Is there a typo in this sentence? It seems contradictory to me. Perhaps you mean “In addition to” rather than “except”? Lines 210-211: This was an interesting quote that is not really addressed in the discussion. There is a whole scientific discipline that would vehemently disagree with this statement. Lines 353-358: I defer to the editor, but the tone of these sentences seem overly persuasive. I suggest that this language be softened to discuss the results and provide support for the implications of the study findings.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your comments. We provided detailed answers to each of your comment in the attached word-document.

Sincerely,

Mirka Erler and Christoph Dittrich

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review Sustainability ‘Alternative Food Networks in Bengaluru’

This paper discusses Alternative Food Networks in India, and the degree to which they might differ from their western counterparts as well as their transformative potential on the food system. The paper raises some interesting issues, and rightly claims that this topics has not yet been discussed to the fullest in the literature. That said, I advise the authors to make some substantive changes to the manuscript. These changes are not necessarily disruptive to the contents of the paper, but mainly refer to its framings and wordings.

In many cases I think the writers can be more nuanced and more precise in their wordings (see below some of the remarks for more details). Also, they seem to hold some assumptions about what an AFN should look like, or should do or strive for, or what consumers should seek, or that the capitalist system only has negative consequences. I think the authors should try to be more careful about such assumptions. AFNs can have several benefits to several parties, but this is not necessarily so. I am not saying that the authors do not agree with that point (because they make this very clear), but they somehow, between the lines, seem to suggest that AFNs should. I think this is where they have to be careful: AFNs can have benefits and often will have a higher chance to reach those benefits than more standardized food selling places, but whether they do is a point of investigation – this doesn’t have to be moralized.

A second point I want to make is that the paper seems to be lacking some sort of goal or research question. Can you explicitly mention what your aim is with this paper, what you try to do? You give several findings and they are interesting but I don’t know in what light to read them. It is always helpful for the reader if he or she knows wat the authors are after, so as to interpret the findings in that light and so that he or she is guided in his or her understanding of the presented results. Sometimes it also helps to repeat the goal at the beginning of the conclusions, but here you only state that you discussed an AFN. I think that this is the main difficulty of the paper: you discuss an AFN. But with what purpose? To what end? I am convinced that you make this more interesting. Especially in sections 4.2 and 4.3 there are some interesting findings that you could elaborate. But that means you need to frame the goal and your aims a bit differently. Again, it is mostly in how you present the findings and the framing. The first paragraph of the conclusions could direct you in making your goals more clear and focused. And also the second paragraph: I think that this needs to become far more clear from the start and results sections – that this is what you are after.

A third important point relates to the fact that the goal of the paper is unclear, in the sense that this makes it difficult to understand your results. While the results are interesting, I think that you can really improve them by making more clear what you mean or try to say. Hence, when I read the part ‘Involvement with the production side’, for instance, I don’t know what the message is you try to convey. There are some separate paragraphs with quotes, but how do they hang together, what is the story or the argument you are trying to make, what point are you trying to get across? In fact, this goes for all the separate sections. In some cases the quotes are a little unclear too, in the sense that they do not really seem to support your statements (although: maybe this would be clearer if it was clearer what your point was). Your results sections would really improve from adding analysis to the text. So rather than presenting some results, clarify what these mean, how you interpret them, and how they link to your research goal. How do they add to your argument? What is it that these results show us, readers?

The same problem of lacking a clear goal also makes it difficult to read and understand and interpret the discussion, although there are some really interesting points here, especially the one starting from line 369, and the one on defensive traditionalism. These last two points were to me the highlights of the paper. Still, and as I argued before: please clarify what you strive for with the three sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3. What is it that these, together, tell us, readers? This would help me so much to understand what it is I should get from the paper, because as if yet this remains unclear to me. In some cases it would also help to be a bit more explicit about the points you are trying to make, and, similar to what I argue below, to be more precise in your wordings. For example, on page 9 you seem to suggest that when there is no democratic structure, rural residents are easily off to live in the city, whereas they would not go to the city if there is a democratic structure: as if others would make the decisions for them completely. Surely this is not what you mean?

The introduction of the paper can do with a little more precision, and a slightly more nuanced view of what AFNs are and entail. All in all I think you are a bit black and white and that you could be a little more precise in your wordings:

For instance, you explain several phases of AFN development but it make it seem as if these follow each other linearly in time – I would expect these phases to be more messy (you do mention that AFNs from different phases coexist in line 56 but somehow this seems to strengthen the idea that these phases themselves have clear boundaries: I guess it is a matter of rephrasing). Also, in line 46 page 2, you write about ‘the first AFN’--> where: in India, the world? This is important because you talk about the development of AFNs, but it is unclear whether you are talking about AFNs in general, in the global South or in India. Furthermore, can you explain how the third phase (line 50) was a reaction to the second? You also state that supermarkets can incorporate alternative food: while I agree with that statement, that does not mean that a supermarket is an AFN. So please make a clear distinction between an AFN and alternative food. I don’t see how the point starting with ‘This way’, in line 60, is a reaction to (or: follows from) the previous point (you are talking about alternative food being available for wealthy people only: is that because it is available in the supermarket or that it ceases to provide resistance?) Line 61: that alternative food is only available to the wealthy, and that wealthy consumers are driven by food anxieties seem to be assumptions

The same goes for the second section (AFN in research). I think your view of the capitalist system ‘versus’ AFNs lacks nuance and clarity:

You do in fact argue that AFNs may reproduce what’s wrong with the food system. However, in line 3, page 3, you also seem to suggest that AFN members have altruistic consumption behaviour. While this may be true to some extent, I don’t think that this is always the case. Also, are street vendors (always) AFNs? I am not convinced and I think you should clarify why you think so (line 100). The second part of this paragraph (let’s say lines 102-111) is not very clear to me either. I am not sure what the point is you are trying to make. I think that this is just an issue of rephrasing and being more specific about what it is you are trying to bring across. Line 112: I don’t think this is true. I think AFNs often do not need the labels because their clients trust them. Labels are much more important in the supermarket, when consumers cannot see and talk to the one who produced the food. I don’t understand your conclusion (line 121) that when farmers have to sell to conventional chains they cannot continue organic or alternative farming. Please explain

Considering the methods:

What are field stays? Can you elaborate? How did you define AFNs, considering the fact that you contacted AFNs in Bengaluru? What types of AFNs or other did you include in this sample? And how did you search for them? On the internet? Do all AFNs have internet? Did you include street vendors? Hence, please elaborate on how you made the list of AFNs and what this included. What are ‘questions for dairy-processing AFNs’? Why were only 14 interviews applicable for analysis? What made them applicable and made others not applicable?

Some minor remarks:

Abstract: they showed too little effort --> too little in what respect, compared to what? The plural of AFN is AFNs I have some trouble with the definition of AFN that you use in the first footnote, as this contains ‘new and rapidly mainstreaming’--> this is not part of what AFN means. Sure, it’s a description of what is happening, but I would opt for a more precise definition. I think the one used is very limited and does not fully explain what AFN entails. I know that AFN is difficult to define and there are tons of definitions out there, but I would suggest choosing one that gives a reader not familiar with the concept a stronger idea about what the concept entails. You actually define it on the second page: why this ‘weird’ definition in the footnote? Please check the spelling once more, as well as the use of commas. Line 333: you argue that AFNs in the north mostly come about by consumer demand but I think there is also research, for example on famers’ markets, that suggests that several farmers engage in such AFNs because they want to get a better price for their produce Line 414: “for the othering...beings”. I don’t understand what you mean Line 428: “these tendencies....sustainable” --> why? Can you elaborate?

Hope this helps!

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, Dear Editor
This is a very important topic regarding organic food as well as its production and distribution system. However, I have a few comments that I will address as questions. Answers to these questions will help improve the article. Here they are:
• What is the purpose of the study? Several questions were put, but they relate directly to the analyzed issue, and not what the original purpose of writing this manuscript was
• What are the size and importance of organic production in India?
• What is the role of organic food and AFNs for India and the study area?
• What are the characteristics of AFN?
• What is the importance of AFNs in Indian agriculture?
• What are the characteristics of AFNs in India? There is no description of them in the research methodology. It is worth to provide the production volume, number of members, type of food produced, length of organic food production period, etc. The presented AFNs could be a case study
• What experience in organic food production have AFNs participating in the study?
• What was the design of the interview scenario? How long did the interviews take? What were the questions? Were they open or closed questions?
• Could the time of the study affect the results?
• What are the study limitations and practical recommendations?
The article only provides a qualitative analysis of the interviews carried out. However, it is worth grouping opinions and providing how many respondents represented individual views and present the results in the form of tables or graphic presentation, e.g. schemes.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made significant changes to their manuscript, and it is much improved. I think that there are some details about the methodology that should be acknolwedged as study limitations. There is no limitations section, which the authors may consider adding.

For example, it is a limitation that there is only one author involved in coding. If study participants were not given the opportunity to comment on the researchers overall findings (i.e. respondent validation), this is also a limitation.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments! We do now explicitly acknowledge these limitations in the methodology section.

Sincerely,

the authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Review Erler and Dittrich, Sustainability

Dear authors,

Thanks for the revised version of the manuscript. You have made several changes and I feel that they have largely improved the paper. Thanks also for taking my suggestions seriously. Several of the issues I raised have been addressed. I think it worked well to focus on traditionalism. It gives the paper a clearer position and goal and clarifies the point that you are trying to make.

Unfortunately I think some more changes are needed. Most of these would be relatively easy to address. I have one more major issue, which is section 5.1. I will discuss the sections one by one here.

Introduction: this is much clearer now and you have clarified where you aim at with the paper. I would suggest however, to change the first paragraphs in the sense that you now start with ‘organic’, whereas the paper really is about AFNs. By starting with organic you give the reader the message that this is what the paper is about – and it is not. So I suggest starting from AFNs right away and deleting references specifically to organic. I would also delete the last paragraph of the introduction, and restructure it a little. It is a bit messy in the sense that you give definitions of AFNs in several places and you discuss AFNs in India/the global south in several places too. I think it can be streamlined a little. But the contents work well.

Section 2: good idea to have this section.

Methods: I think it might be helpful to add a few (short) examples about the types of AFNs that you found and included. I am not familiar with AFNs in India at all, and it might help me as a reader to get the picture in my head. Also, you write that you provided the opportunity for interviewees to add remarks to the interview. I don’t think you need to mention this: I would say that opportunity is available in any interview – otherwise it’s a questionnaire.

Findings and discussion: It seems that you have two major points to make in the findings: 1) AFNs mostly started as a way to help farmers, 2) there is a sense of (defensive) traditionalism. Then in the discussion you come back to both points really. For the second point (traditionalism) this works well.

I think it is a bit more problematic with regards to the first point (helping farmers as a motivation to start AFNs). In the findings you discuss that the initiators of the AFNs start these because they want to support local farmers. In the discussion, however, you aim to discuss whether their strategies to do so are valid. This is problematic, because you did not use the appropriate methods to make statements about this. This type of research does not allow to state whether their measures are appropriate. You use literature and of course that is valid, but your literature does not paint a clear picture either as authors do not agree with each other. Also, we do not really know from your work the measures the farmers took. We know their strategies, but not really measures. We know about their ideas and motivations, but we don’t really know what they actually did. That would really need much more research about the farms, the farmers, their ability to stay in business, etc. I appreciate that you may want to problematise their ideas about helping farmers, but you cannot discuss their performance on this because you simply do not have the numbers to evaluate their performance and to see how it worked out. You could say something like, potentially their strategies make sense, or, these strategies may be problematic because...or, these strategies are an alternative to (work against) the conventional system because... but the claims you are making now are too strong. What is interesting here is line 392: “they also reproduce some drawbacks of the agri-food system”. Perhaps you can elaborate on that. Also the exclusionary mechanisms are interesting. So I am sure there is lots to say about how these strategies backfire or what their drawbacks are, and you could make an interesting case here, but you don’t have the tools now to say whether they performed as planned.

I like the parts of traditionalism and the distinction you make about defensive and unreflexive traditionalism.

By the way, if you really want to make these two points, why is only the second in the title? Would there be a way to combine the two into one argument rather than two? So, are the strategies to save farmers (point 1) somehow related to this defensive localism (point 2), so that you could combine this and create one argument? That would surely strengthen the paper because it would integrate these two findings into 1 that is supported by more evidence.

I appreciate the fact that you clarify the quotes you used. Sometimes perhaps it is a little much. What could work is to start your sections with the point you want to make, and then illustrate this with the quotes and their explanations. For instance, lines 225 to 227 give a very nice argument, you also start this by ‘Summarizing’. What about starting with this, to clarify the point you want to make, and then show that this is in fact happening with the quotes. That way it would become more clear what you are arguing, and the quotes would be more used as a way to clarify and illustrate your argument. Especially section 4.2 could use a little more argument of what you are trying to say. It seems that there is some sort of nostalgia or wish to return to the past, and you discuss this further in the discussion, but I think it might be worthwhile to try and also make this section into an argument, rather than (I am overdoing it now) a collection of loose quotes and sections. I hope I am making sense and that you get my point.

Some minor issues:

I suggest deleting or changing the quote in the title: the quote itself doesn’t really say anything other than the rest of the title, it is not enlightening, there isn’t anything in there that is specifically illustrative. I didn’t pay attention to the spelling etc as you said that you will have the paper edited. I do feel however, that in some cases you could write a little ‘tighter’, meaning that the text could be a bit better structured so that the argument flows better. This is of course only a matter of writing style. I feel bad about saying this but sometimes the phrasing seems just a little ‘clumsy’ so having someone check the language and style might really be worthwhile. It shouldn’t matter for your story, but it is easier to make a convincing argument when this argument is well phrased. Some sections could do with some concluding sentences, they sometimes end rather abruptly, like section 4.1 and 4.2. I still don’t understand the point about farmers’ participation in decision making about price. Sure, you want participation and you want the farmers to get a large part of the price paid, but somehow it seems that you suggest that farmers are guaranteed to receive the price they ask for. But people will have to be willing to pay it. A good price (paid to farmers) is not guaranteed by participation. I like the parts on traditionalism, but it seems to rely a lot on R12. Is that so? You say that defensive traditionalism has become normalised. But has it? Is it fair to conclude this from these interviews with farmers/AFNs only?

I hope this helps. I feel a bit bad about having so many remarks again. I feel, however, that there is something really interesting to argue here, but that it somehow doesn’t really show from the paper as it is now. Some more streamlining, a bit tighter writing, some more argumentation would be able to make your paper stand out more.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors the article has been significantly improved.
I suggest, however, not to mention exactly who gave particular
statements in the description, e.g. R13.
It is also worth pointing out the limitations of the study
and the directions of further research.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your comments. We considered them in the following way:

"I suggest, however, not to mention exactly who gave particular
statements in the description, e.g. R13.": We continue to do that because this is, according to our experience the way in which citations by interlocutors should be given in scientific papers. If you disagree and find still find this inappropriate we would kindly ask for some elaboration on why you think so.

"It is also worth pointing out the limitations of the study
and the directions of further research.": The limitations of the study are now adressed in the methodology section. Directions for further research are given in the last paragraph of chapter 4.3 now and practical directions in the manuscripts final paragraph.

We hope that this improves our manuscript to your satisfaction.

Sincerely,

the authors