Agroforestry Practices in Livelihood Improvement in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please elaborate more on research gap that you try to fill, originality, academic and practical contribution in abstract.

Unnecessary indentation in the fourth line and line 54, Lines 139-140, please check.

Lines 61-62, The objective of this study is to analyze the likely impact of AF practices in promoting the livelihood of rural communities in the study areas. Why do we need to know? What may be the contribution if we know about this?

It is not clear what is the main objective, it should be narrowed down.

Last three paragraphs in the first section, 2.2.3-2.2.4, section 3 first paragraph have missing citations.

Line 223, font size problem.

Line 250, please use full name of (DBSA, 2011)

Table 2, what is the dependent variable.

What is the linkage in this paper with Sustainability?

Line 363, font size problem in AF.

References, replace those non-journal articles ones with top journal articles.

State the full name of AF in the whole paper.

It is not clear the point of originality of the whole paper, contributions etc. Rather difficult to follow, please rewrite the whole paper and ensure a clear flow.

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the report attached herewith and the revised version of the paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the submission; I find the paper so enjoyable during the revision. However, I consider that the author/s should improve the work because the document is not yet suitable according to journal requirements. I propose you rethink and rewrite the research core by considering the following comments:

• The abstract is not an accurate description of the paper content.
• The author/s should expand and actualize the references. 
• The literature review has many items; it is not clear. The figure also is confused, and I suggest you remove the colours and made the headlines bigger. 
• The authors should include a more solid methodological approach. The econometrical analysis does not describe the employed test and not add the results in the Annexes. There is also no empirical analysis that supports the employment of the logarithmic model.
• The paper should include more statistical information about the survey. Then, the data description should also provide the sampling error, for example.
• The regressions coefficients should be significant; I not understand why the author/s include them. 
• Table 2 presents much information that could confuse the reader. In my opinion, the author/s should separate the Anova model from the regression results.
• There are also many typographical errors throughout the paper.

Let me suggest that the paper has a vast potential to be published; however, it does not have enough quality to be proposed as relevant research to the editors. 

Author Response

Please find attached the Author's Reply to the Review Report (Reviewer 2) and the revised version of the paper submitted. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

First page, please provide some more updated citations in recent two years. 

Line 64, contribute for sustainable rural development…contribute to should be used instead. 

Is there any missing citation in lines 151-162 : “These include savings held in the bank, credit, stocks, and fungible assets such… personal household properties that can be converted into cash are considered as physical capital”. 

Figure 1 needs much work on improving the appearance. 

Citation of Figure 2 is not in MDPI format. 

Citations of (Boraine, 2011) are in incorrect format. 

Table 1, wrong format. What is valid percent? In what way it is different from percent? 

Please state clearly in the Table. 

Table 2, wrong format. It should not direct copy from SPSS. Table 3, please retain the r square and adjusted r square information. 

Table 2, please explain why log was taken. 

Table 3 can be removed with adjusted R square added to Table 2. 

Please provide the contribution (academic, practical etc) in this paper and can the results be generalised to other African countries and elsewhere? 

Lines 227-228, A total of 300 respondents were included in the survey of which 53 percent are females and 43 percent are males. How are these people selected? Please provide the survey questions in the paper. 

Add a section of research method. Why the methods like survey is used. Where has survey been used, cite the papers like https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5831/htm and https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2863/htm 

If Table 1 is a summary of the survey results, mean, mode, median, SD are needed. 

Remove all yellow highlight. 

The reference lists are problematic in format. 

Cite a lot more journal articles and replace some of the books etc in the reference list. 

Some explanations on Annex 1 table is needed and why the questions are asked is required. 

Put this table back to the content. 

Table 2 in Annex 2 is incorrect format. 

Yes and no questions are not good for SSCI publications. How can we run regression based on yes, no questions only? How to reach these respondents. 

 

Many thanks and regards

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable  comments. I attached here with my report how I addressed the comments by Reviewer 1. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

No comments

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments. 

I attached here with my report how I addressed the comments by Reviewer 1. Reviewer 2 has no comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Delete 43 from the list of reference.

Tables 1-3 format are not in MDPI format.

Move footnotes 1 and 2 back to the main content, shorten them and retain the most important parts.

Line 153, Human capital has an incorrect indent

Line 170-171 wrong font size.

Line 177, delete the space after (

Line 190, delete the space before The

figure 1, remove the highlight.

Line 262, please use the full name of LRM, in the whole paper, try to avoid abbreviations unless they are common abbreviation that authors do not need to check and read through previous paragraphs.

Line 350, delete the unnecessary space before Table

 

Figure 1 has not revised. As said the figure at present looks very unprofessional.

Add a section of research method. Why the methods like survey is used. Where has survey been used, cite the papers like https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5831/htm and https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/10/2863/htm 

Table 3, remove the column besides constant and land size.

Footnote 3, Valid percent is the percent when? What does it mean? Please move back to main content.

Line 405, delete unnecessary space.

Line 392, This study confirmed that agroforestry in the study areas, please state the exact place and replace "the study areas".

Figure 3, remove figure frame.

Line 335, remove unnecessary space.

Line 351-352, 260 and other lines, please check the font size again and revise.

In the map, please marks where these two study areas locate and a higher resolution map is needed.

Lines 26-47 have different line spacing as compared to others.

Line 82, The objective of this study is to analyze the likely impact of agroforestry practices in, what kind of agroforestry practices do you refer to? Please explain.

Line 86, agroforestry cannot provide statistically significant contribution...what do you mean by statistically significant here?

Lines 419-420, Farmers need more information and training for agroforestry relative to other agricultural activities...Why?

"To check the robustness of the results from descriptive  analysis of livelihood activities discussed in section 4.2," This part can be deleted from conclusion, please stress the contribution of the paper instead.

Author Response

All the comments are addressed. Please see the attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx