Significance of Agriculture for Bioeconomy in the Member States of the European Union
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The current manuscript attempts to examine the role and significance of agriculture for Bioeconomy, it is an interesting issue, falls within the scope of the journal and it is of interest for its audience. As the authors state there are many studies in the literature examining various issues related to bioeconomy; the current study though, examines the nexus between agriculture and bioeconomy.
I find the manuscript interesting and the authors presented its aims simply and clear. They analyze the contribution of agriculture to bioeconomy, in terms of employment, GVA and turnover. These three variables are those JRC estimates and reports in its Data-modeling platform, for all EU countries. The authors used these data to justify the role of agriculture.
Though, a model does not exist in the manuscript to examine its basic aim, the study through the elaboration of the JRC data presents a comprehensive indication of agriculture's role for bioeconomy in the EU countries. Thus, I find the manuscript interesting and eligible for publication, after taking into consideration the minor comments below:
1. There are many publications that examine issues related to bioeconomy and agriculture, the authors should enrich with such studies the introduction section.
2. In Lines 95-97 of the manuscript the authors state that "……On the other hand, the significance of respective sectors for the development of bioeconomy is mentioned more rarely…..". Actually, exist studies that examine the importance of various sectors in the development of bioeconomy; those studies are mainly using general equilibrium models (such as Input-Output or SAM models). Those studies are examining the economy-wide effects of bioeconomy sectors. Such a study, is that of Loizou et. al (2019), where the role of all biobased sectors is examined in terms of employment and output generation in an economy. Moreover, in JRC publications cab n found such studies; the authors should search for them.
Loizou E., Jurga P., Rozakis S., and Faber A. (2019). Assessing the Potentials of Bioeconomy Sectors in Poland Employing Input-Output Modeling. Sustainability, 11(3), 594; doi:10.3390/su11030594.
3. Equations in figure 1 should be explained.
4. In lines 242-250 where the data of table 2 are presented, it is worth mentioning the difference of Germany's high employment share in bioeconomy (10.74); it is not coming from agriculture as for the other countries. It worth mentioning and explaining this difference.
5. Finally, some minor English language editing is needed.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your support in the processing of our article "Significance of Agriculture for Bioeconomy in the Member States of the European Union". We have studied your comments carefully and revised our version. The details are listed in the attachement.
Once again, we greatly appreciate your valuable comments ad hope that you will approve the improved text.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Anna Nowak, Anna Kobiałka and Artur Krukowski
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for submitting such an interesting topic. Just recently, the EU agricultural reform was passed and the authors are recommended to include the current political dimension and the development over the considered period as well (e.g. EU funding). As also described in the manuscript, the structures in the individual member countries are very different and it is therefore difficult to make a statement about the EU as a whole. Nevertheless, it is recommended that the authors look more deeply into the available data (statistical analysis such as correlation analysis would be interesting). In general, the discussion of the results is very brief. The embedding of the results in the possible future development is missing. Sustainable agriculture as part of the bioeconomy also needs a consideration of the ecological dimension. This is also only mentioned briefly, but would certainly be interesting for a discussion of the results. In summary, it is recommended that the authors clearly highlight the new findings (more than just replicating existing data) and place them in the current policy context. A discussion of the results as well as an outlook of a possible development is absolutely necessary. In addition, it is recommended to revise the figures (not all of them are necessary; sometimes the axis label is missing).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your support in the processing of our article "Significance of Agriculture for the Bioeconomy in the Member States of the European Union".
We have studied your comments carefully and revised our version. The details are listed in the attachement.
Once again, we greatly appreciate your valuable comments and hope that you will approve the impoved text.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Anna Nowak, Anna Kobiałka and Artur Krukowski
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors! Thank you for the well done revisions to the paper. The additional explanations and the incorporation of additional sources has improved the manuscript.
I still think that the summary and especially the outlook fall a bit short. Especially with regard to future research in this area. For example, you talk about the fact that further research and other methods would still be useful here. An explanation of which other methods that would be is still missing. The manuscript would gain in quality by revising the summary and the outlook.
Please make sure to format the figures in a way that they are readable (preferably also in black and white).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you once again for your support in the processing of our article. We have revised the last version and made some adjustments. Details are included in the appendix.
We greatly appreciate your valuable comments and hope that you will approve the improved text.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Anna Nowak, Anna Kobiałka, Artur Krukowski
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
