Research on Regional Differences of the Leisure Agriculture’s Impact on Farmers’ Income—An Empirical Analysis Based on Nonlinear Threshold Regression
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Reviewer’s comment
This research investigated the impact of leisure agriculture on farmer’s income in China. Since the impact of leisure agriculture on Chinese agriculture is not subtle, this research is important. However, explanations especially models, figures, and tables are definitely lacking in many places. Authors must be revised.
General
The methodology part is problematic. Why should authors use the nonlinear model? How did you determine the thresholds? How did you conduct the robustness test? The authors should explain these points in detail. Because how to estimate the thresholds and how to understand these values did not mention in this manuscript, readers cannot understand the meaning and plausibility of the values.
I could not find the appropriate explanations in almost all figures and tables. I could not understand the definitions of words that the authors used. Most of the figures and tables are not inserted in the text. Thus, the readers feel difficult to follow the logic. I also felt that there were a lot of unnecessary figures and tables. If authors do not use those figures and tables, authors should delete or move to the appendix.
The above two points are essential. The “inverted N” or “inverted U” structures are the central points of the discussion of this manuscript. However, readers could not understand where they should see, therefore, readers cannot judge whether the authors’ argument is plausible or not.
There were some parts that the logical expansion was not convincing. The authors discussed the developmental levels of leisure agriculture and the Engel coefficient. In the authors’ logic, leisure agriculture affected the Engel coefficient and as a result, it affected the farmers’ income. However, I think that leisure agriculture affected the farmers’ income and finally affected the Engel coefficient.
The results section was combined with the discussion. The authors should divide into results and discussion sections. In the discussion, the authors should argue the limitation and issues of this research.
I found many places that the authors did not follow the guideline.
In the policy recommendations, the authors discussed the topics that they did not pick up in the text. For the readers who are unfamiliar with China, they would feel that the logic has leaped.
Detail
Abstract: In the first line, the author mentioned the three-industry integration. These three classifications continued to be discussed in the entire text, the authors should indicate these three classifications in the abstract in the second sentence.
Introduction: The authors should mention the definition of leisure agriculture at the beginning of the introduction.
Tables: it is very difficult to see where the parentheses in the table extend over two lines. Table 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 were not inserted in the text. The order of the tables should be listed according to the order of the numbers. However, in the text, the order was Table 5 -> Table 6 and 2 -> Table 3. This is not natural.
Table 3: why the farmers’ nominal income denotes as “ri” in variable expression?
Table 4, 7: the author should explain each parameter, especially “BS-reps”. There were no explanations about asterisks of F-value. In the table, there were significant levels, however, there were F-value and P-value and it is difficult to understand.
Table 5, 8: what are “Ito1(g1) and Ito2(g2)? There were no explanations about “CI”. I found the values of the 95% CI are the same as threshold values, but the validity of those values are questionable.
Table 6: what is the “constant term2?
Table 8: the second line is bold.
Table 10: there are no explanations regarding “ppa”.
Figures: only figure 2 is inserted in the text. According to the guideline of Sustainability, the authors should denote as “Figure 2” in the text, however, it denoted as “Fig. 2”.
There were no explanations regarding the horizontal axis. What are the red lines? What are the 1st and 2nd rounds? The readers cannot understand the meaning of Figures 2 and 3.
Model: what is the meaning of “u” and “e" in equation 1 and 2. Why is there “e" in the equation 2 but not in equation 1? There were no explanations about a and b and subscript i and t.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Point 1:The value added of the article should be clearly highlighted.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! After communicating with the co-authors, we believe that the explanation in the part of adding the value of the article is helpful for readers to understand the contribution and highlights of the article. Therefore, we accept your valuable advice and add the explanation in the part of introducing the value of the article and the content of research contribution in the part of concluding the article. The revised content is shown in the paper.
Point 2:What is the economic importance of agriculture in China?
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! After communicating with the co-authors, we believe that the addition of this part will help non-Chinese readers to understand the relevant background. Therefore, we have added relevant statements about the importance of agriculture and rural areas to the Chinese economy in the abstract part.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article deals with interesting issues related to leisure agriculture. This topic may be of interest to Sustaiability readers.
The article decomposes through the action mechanism, analyzes the linear impact of leisure agriculture on the income of farmers. The manuscript quality is very high. However, authors should complete the article as follows:
The value added of the article should be clearly highlighted.
What is the economic importance of agriculture in China?
Author Response
Point 1: The topic is very interesting and the paper can be considered for publication after some changes on:
- a) The clarification of the terms used;
- b) The citation of some implicit references;
- c) The shift of the presentation of the model and the presentation of the data used;
- d) The integration of the three model types “City dependent”, “Agricultural Industry dependent” and “Natural Resource-dependent” into the same model using dummies on the explanatory variables.
- e) A better presentation of the Tables 6, 10 and 11 that besides having the same do not include the due regression statistics
- f) The limitation of policy advices to the results obtained in the model estimates.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! After communicating with the co-authors, we believe that we need to further refine and clarify some of the content: firstly, we have clarified the terms used such as TLG hypothesis and the quoted part; second, in order to make the model representation and data presentation clearer, we have refined the transformation of the model representation and the data representation used; thirdly, In order to clearly show the difference in coefficients between different types of explanatory variables and other variables, we thought it would be better not to use dummy variables to merge after careful discussion; fourthly, this article focuses on the non-linear effects of explanatory variables. The regression statistics in Tables 6, 10, and 11 have been briefly mentioned in the analysis following the table. In order to better understand our sample situation, we analyze the descriptive statistical results of the variables at the back of Table 3; fifthly, the conclusion part of this article has already explained some of the limitations of the article. In order to make the article more rigorous, we have added an explanation of the limitations of the model results in the policy conclusion part.
Point 2: Page 1 line 9: In the abstract the term ”rural three-industry integration” is not commonly known internationally. Please explain it or use only “rural-industry integration”.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! In order to express the meaning clearly, we have modified this part of the content to " Leisure agriculture is the main carrier of industry integration in China’s rural areas".
Point 3: Page 1 line 14: Please explain better what is leisure agriculture. It can be a person that has two activities in agriculture and elsewhere or a farmer that hosts not farmers to work in agriculture for leisure.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! In order to clearly express this meaning, we give a detailed explanation of leisure agriculture in the paper, and modify the unclear content to "Leisure agriculture is the main carrier of industry integration in China’s rural areas".
Point 4: Page 1 line 23: How can you write, “It is proposed that the government should respond to the different development stages of leisure agriculture” if you do not analyse the role of the government in agriculture.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! This sentence is not to analyze the role of the government, but to put forward corresponding policy recommendations based on the conclusions of this article, and provide policy recommendations for the government to better intervene in leisure agriculture.
Point 5: Page 1 line 42: What is agritainment?
Response 5: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! Agritainment is a form of rural households using their own houses, courtyards and cultivated land to provide tourism services such as leisure and sightseeing.
Point 6: Page 2 line 46: You write “According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2017” but you do not cite the source.
Response 6: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! Since the data used in this article belongs to the undisclosed data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, a supplementary explanation is made on the data source.
Point 7: Page 2 line 54: Please explain better what is the “one-size-fits-all leisure agriculture's incentive”
Response 7: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! Since the Chinese government’s policy on leisure agriculture is based on the understanding of the current development situation and industry analysis, due to insufficient understanding of the heterogeneity of leisure agriculture, and in order to save the cost of policy implementation, Chinese governments at all levels generally treat leisure agriculture adopts a eclectic one-size-fits-all policy.
Point 8: Page 2 line 62: Please cite "Feasible Ability Theory" proposed by Amartya Sen.
Response 8: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have added the literature citation of "feasible capability theory" in the article.
Point 9: Page 2 Line 78: Please explain and cite the “TLG (Tour-led Growth) hypothesis”.
Response 9: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! In order to make the expression more clear, we added the literature citations of TLG theory in the article, and explained the core points of the theory.
Point 10: Page 3 Line 114: Figure 1 does not consider the income multiplier effect in the local economy.
Response 10: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! The figure mainly shows the influence path and mechanism of leisure agriculture to illustrate the non-linear influence of leisure agriculture on the income of farmers. Therefore, the multiplier effect cannot be reflected in the graph.
Point 11: Page 4 Line 161: Please explain "public tragedy". It is the tragedy of the commons. If yes how does it happens in this case?
Response 11: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! The development of rural tourism relies on the rural natural scenery, farmland land-scape and other resources. These resources have public goods attributes. Therefore, farmers will not spend money to maintain these resources. With the arrival of tourists, the rural natural scenery has no funds to maintain, the situation will be destroyed.
Point 12: Page 5 Line 185: Table 1, I think that provincial disaggregation is too big to take into account distance to the agriculture and touristic markets. What you are getting is averages and losing the real features of the phenomena. A map of the regions may help the reader.
Response 12: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! Limited by the availability of data, this article uses a provincial decomposition. The provincial decomposition does have the problem of too large scale, but at the same time, there are some similarities between provinces in China, which enables the decomposition of this article to obtain some results that are relatively close to the actual situation. The decomposition of this article may be the future of leisure agriculture. The research provides some valuable references.
Point 13: Page 7 Line 258 It is better to explain the Engel coefficient as the income elasticity for food consumption.
Response 13: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! This paper uses the Engel coefficient as a scalar substitute for actual income, and the Engel coefficient as the main indicator reflecting the household consumption structure. It can reflect the actual household benefits of farmers. The smaller the income of farmers, the proportion of household income spent on food purchases. The bigger it is, as the household income increases, the proportion of household income spent on food purchases will decrease. The higher the Engel coefficient, the lower the actual income level of farmers.
Point 14: Page 7 Line 275 I suggest that you put the Model Setting (3.2) before Data Sources (3.1).
Response 14: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We accept your opinion and put the model setting (3.2) before the data source (3.1).
Point 15: Page 10 Line 337 Table 6. Results of Model Regression. Each model should include other statistics such as R2, F, Durbin-Watson. Furthermore, there are better ways to present t and p statistics. Furthermore you should consider time dummy variables and eventually regional dummies (coastal areas versus other areas). Finally, the name of Table 6 (Results of Model Regression) should be different from Table 9 and Table 10.
Response 15: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! In order to facilitate the analysis of the difference of coefficients in different regions and different types, this paper does not use dummy variables. In addition, we accept your valuable comments and modify the topics in Table 6 and Table 9.
Point 16: Page 13 Line 562 What you test is the impact of the Financial Support for Agriculture and therefore you should not take many policy Recommendations out of this results that are non robust for most of the models.
Response 16: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! This article tests the impact of leisure agriculture on farmers’ income rather than on the impact of agricultural financial support. Policy recommendations are put forward based on the results of model regression.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper “Research on Regional Differences of the Leisure Agriculture's Impact on Farmers' Income—An Empirical Analysis Based on Nonlinear Threshold Regression analyses the impact of different types of leisure agriculture in the farmers’ income using different linear regressions models estimated with panel data from 30 city regions of China for 2008 till 2016. Authors conclude that the impact is different according to the intensity of leisure agriculture and the type of farm.
The topic is very interesting and the paper can be considered for publication after some changes on:
- a) The clarification of the terms used;
- b) The citation of some implicit references;
- c) The shift of the presentation of the model and the presentation of the data used;
- d) The integration of the three model types “City dependent”, “Agricultural Industry dependent” and “Natural Resource-dependent” into the same model using dummies on the explanatory variables.
- e) A better presentation of the Tables 6, 10 and 11 that besides having the same do not include the due regression statistics-
- f) The limitation of policy advices to the results obtained in the model estimates.
Furthermore:
Page 1 line 9: In the abstract the term ”rural three-industry integration” is not commonly known internationally. Please explain it or use only “rural-industry integration”.
Page 1 line 14: Please explain better what is leisure agriculture. It can be a person that has two activities in agriculture and elsewhere or a farmer that hosts not farmers to work in agriculture for leisure.
Page 1 line 23: How can you write, “It is proposed that the government should respond to the different development stages of leisure agriculture” if you do not analyse the role of the government in agriculture.
Page 1 line 42: What is agritainment?
Page 2 line 46: You write “According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2017” but you do not cite the source.
Page 2 line 54: Please explain better what is the “one-size-fits-all leisure agriculture's incentive”
Page 2 line 62: Please cite "Feasible Ability Theory" proposed by Amartya Sen.
Page 2 Line 78: Please explain and cite the “TLG (Tour-led Growth) hypothesis”.
Page 3 Line 114: Figure 1 does not consider the income multiplier effect in the local economy.
Page 4 Line 161: Please explain "public tragedy". It is the tragedy of the commons. If yes how does it happens in this case?
Page 5 Line 185: Table 1, I think that provincial disaggregation is too big to take into account distance to the agriculture and touristic markets. What you are getting is averages and losing the real features of the phenomena. A map of the regions may help the reader.
Page 7 Line 258 It is better to explain the Engel coefficient as the income elasticity for food consumption.
Page 7 Line 275 I suggest that you put the Model Setting (3.2) before Data Sources (3.1).
Page 10 Line 337 Table 6. Results of Model Regression. Each model should include other statistics such as R2, F, Durbin-Watson. Furthermore, there are better ways to present t and p statistics. Furthermore you should consider time dummy variables and eventually regional dummies (coastal areas versus other areas). Finally, the name of Table 6 (Results of Model Regression) should be different from Table 9 and Table 10.
Page 13 Line 562 What you test is the impact of the Financial Support for Agriculture and therefore you should not take many policy Recommendations out of this results that are non robust for most of the models.
Author Response
Point 1:
The methodology part is problematic. Why should authors use the nonlinear model? How did you determine the thresholds? How did you conduct the robustness test? The authors should explain these points in detail. Because how to estimate the thresholds and how to understand these values did not mention in this manuscript, readers cannot understand the meaning and plausibility of the values.
I could not find the appropriate explanations in almost all figures and tables. I could not understand the definitions of words that the authors used. Most of the figures and tables are not inserted in the text. Thus, the readers feel difficult to follow the logic. I also felt that there were a lot of unnecessary figures and tables. If authors do not use those figures and tables, authors should delete or move to the appendix.
The above two points are essential. The “inverted N” or “inverted U” structures are the central points of the discussion of this manuscript. However, readers could not understand where they should see, therefore, readers cannot judge whether the authors’ argument is plausible or not.
There were some parts that the logical expansion was not convincing. The authors discussed the developmental levels of leisure agriculture and the Engel coefficient. In the authors’ logic, leisure agriculture affected the Engel coefficient and as a result, it affected the farmers’ income. However, I think that leisure agriculture affected the farmers’ income and finally affected the Engel coefficient.
The results section was combined with the discussion. The authors should divide into results and discussion sections. In the discussion, the authors should argue the limitation and issues of this research.
I found many places that the authors did not follow the guideline.
In the policy recommendations, the authors discussed the topics that they did not pick up in the text. For the readers who are unfamiliar with China, they would feel that the logic has leaped.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments!
The part of the influence mechanism of this article explains the path of the impact of leisure agriculture on the income of farmers, indicating that the impact of leisure agriculture development on the income of farmers is mainly divided into three aspects, including two internal influencing factors of agricultural production and non-agricultural production, as well as externalities. An external environmental factor, at the same time, illustrates that the phased differences of different impacts have led to the non-linearity of the overall impact. Therefore, we believe that the nonlinear model is more appropriate.
As for the determination of the threshold, the threshold is not determined by the author himself, and the artificial threshold is not scientific. The threshold in this paper is based on the optimal threshold range obtained by threshold regression screening. The screening process and results are shown in Table 5, Table 7, Table 8, and Figure 2 and Figure 3.
The structure of inverted N and inverted U is determined by the core explanatory variables (agat) obtained in Table 6 and Table 9. In the development process of the development level of leisure agriculture (agat) from low to high, if the coefficient is first high, then low and then high, it shows an inverted N structure. If the coefficient is first low, then high and then low, It shows that it presents an inverted U-shaped structure.
In addition, we have made some changes to the formulation and policy recommendations in the article so that readers who are not familiar with China can better understand.
Point 2: abstract: In the first line, the author mentioned the three-industry integration. These three classifications continued to be discussed in the entire text, the authors should indicate these three classifications in the abstract in the second sentence.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We accept your comments and modify and supplement the abstract.
Point 3: Introduction: The authors should mention the definition of leisure agriculture at the beginning of the introduction.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We accept your comments in the introduction to explain part of the increase of leisure agriculture
Point 4: Tables: it is very difficult to see where the parentheses in the table extend over two lines. Table 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 were not inserted in the text. The order of the tables should be listed according to the order of the numbers. However, in the text, the order was Table 5 -> Table 6 and 2 -> Table 3. This is not natural.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We accept your opinion and modify the chart format to make it easier to view the content of the chart.
Point 5: Table 3: why the farmers’ nominal income denotes as “ri” in variable expression?
Response 5: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We use the abbreviation ri of rural resident's income to represent the nominal income of farmers
Point 6: Table 4, 7: the author should explain each parameter, especially “BS-reps”. There were no explanations about asterisks of F-value. In the table, there were significant levels, however, there were F-value and P-value and it is difficult to understand.
Response 6: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! BS-reps is the content that does not need to be reported, indicating the number of repeated sampling using the bootstrap method. We accept your opinion and add an explanation of the significance of the F value after Table 4 and Table 7.
Point 7: Table 5, 8: what are “Ito1(g1) and Ito2(g2)? There were no explanations about “CI”. I found the values of the 95% CI are the same as threshold values, but the validity of those values are questionable.
Response 7: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! Ito1(g1) and Ito2(g2) are used to characterize the first threshold and the second threshold. The 95% CI represents its significance range. Therefore, it is normal that the 95% CI is the same as the threshold. Ito1(g1) and Ito2(g2) ) It must be within 95% to be significant.
Point 8: Table 6: what is the “constant term2?
Response 8: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! This is a small mistake in writing and we have modified it.
Point 9: Table 8: the second line is bold.
Response 9: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! This is a small mistake in writing and we have modified it.
Point 10: Table 10: there are no explanations regarding “ppa”.
Response 10: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have explained ppa in the article
Point 11: Model: what is the meaning of “u” and “e" in equation 1 and 2. Why is there “e" in the equation 2 but not in equation 1? There were no explanations about a and b and subscript i and t.
Response 11: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! In order to facilitate readers’ understanding, we have added an explanation in the article.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All tables and figures should be cited in the text according to the guideline of Sustainability. If the authors cannot insert some tables or figures, those should be moved to the appendix or supplement.
In the Materials and Methods, authors should explain why they used the bootstrap methods and what can be elucidated by this method. I could not find these explanations.
In the Results sections, the methodology is combined (page 9, lines 337-365). The authors should describe methodology and results separately.
Figures 2 and 3, please indicate the y-axis title.
Tables 6 and 9, there are still some places that the sentence is over the two rows. Please adjust it.
Table 7, notes, please follow the guideline.
- Page 1, lines 18-21, please correct this sentence.
- Page 2, line 70, the font of the reference [3] should be corrected.
- Page 3, line 71, reference should be changed into the number.
- Page 7, Equations 1 and 2, there is still a lack of explanation. Please explain all parameters (alfa, beta, u, epsilon) including subscript i and t.
- Page 7, lines 294-296, line spacing should be corrected.
- Page 9, line 351, notes and text are combined. Please separate and notes should be followed to the guideline.
- Page 13, line 454, please replace from “Fig. 2” to “Figure 2”.
- Page 19, line 634, please take a space on the first line.
- Page 19, line 658, "The effect ozf"?
- Page 19, line 675, Follow the guideline.
English should be proofread.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Point 1:
All tables and figures should be cited in the text according to the guideline of Sustainability. If theauthors cannot insert some tables or figures, those should be moved to the appendix orsupplement.
In the Materials and Methods, authors should explain why they used the bootstrap methods andwhat can be elucidated by this method. I could not find these explanations.
In the Results sections, the methodology is combined (page 9, lines 337-365). The authors shoulddescribe methodology and results separately.
Figures 2 and 3, please indicate the y-axis title.
Tables 6 and 9, there are still some places that the sentence is over the two rows. Please adjust it.
Table 7, notes, please follow the guideline.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We carefully adjusted the table to make the table more complete, and added graphics and table references in the article.The method selection is explained in the model setting part.The Y axis of Figure 2 and Figure 3 shows the likelihood ratio, which has been shown in the table. Other mentioned parts have also been adjusted and revised accordingly.
Point 2: Page 1, lines 18-21, please correct this sentence.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We carefully checked the text on lines 18-21 and made corrections carefully.
Point 3: Page 2, line 70, the font of the reference [3] should be corrected.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 4: Page 3, line 71, reference should be changed into the number.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 5: Page 7, Equations 1 and 2, there is still a lack of explanation. Please explain all parameters (alfa, beta, u, epsilon) including subscript i and t.
Response 5: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have added the corresponding explanation in the article.
Point 6: Page 7, lines 294-296, line spacing should be corrected.
Response 6: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 7: Page 9, line 351, notes and text are combined. Please separate and notes should be followed to the guideline
Response 7: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 8: Page 13, line 454, please replace from “Fig. 2” to “Figure 2”.
Response 8: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 9: Page 19, line 634, please take a space on the first line.
Response 9: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 10: Page 19, line 658, "The effect ozf"?
Response 10: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 11: Page 19, line 675, Follow the guideline.
Response 11: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked and modified.
Point 12: English should be proofread.
Response 12: Thank you very much for your valuable comments! We have checked the article carefully and corrected some grammatical mistakes.
