Value Chain Analysis of Eucalyptus Wood Products in the Blue Nile Highlands of Northwestern Ethiopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript titled “Value Chain Analysis of Eucalyptus Wood Products at the Blue Nile Highlands of Northwestern Ethiopia” by Tesfaw et al. analysed the Eucalyptus wood products value chain in three North-western regions of Ethiopia by means of interviews, focus groups discussions and direct observations. Actors involved in the value chain are described as well as their role and contribution in the product chain. Challenges and opportunities for the sector are described according to study results and some other conclusions stated.

My only comment regarding the abstract refers to the absence of the final goal which in my opinion is to identify key challenges and opportunities for the sector as stated at the final paragraph of the introduction section.

In the introduction section, although I am not an expert in Eucalyptus neither in Ethiopian forestry, I miss references to Eucalyptus ecological challenges such as soil health or biodiversity impacts (see lines 657-660). I also miss additional references to wood value chain studies including Eucalyptus and Ethiopian studies (see line 74+).

In the methodology section I identified minor comments such as:

• Line 92: “had” instead of “has”
• Line 93: “kilometer” instead of “kilometers”
• Figure 1 is not referenced in the text.
• Line 106: Here you used the terminology “producer households”, but you were using
• growers” or “grower households”. Please, homogenize your terminology.
• Line 108: Include the name of the study in addition to the reference number.
• Lines 108-110: Do you mean in absolute (number of ha) or relative (%) cover? Please, specify.
• Line 112: Include the name of the study in addition to the reference number.
• Table 1: Consider moving the note to the main text. Where are the 2 missing respondents who improperly filled the questionnaire?
• Line 126-128: Unclear sentence. Please, reformulate.
• Line 129: Which type of data was requested? You could describe it and provide some examples.
• Line 143: Was this methodological step done according to reference 21? Please, clarify.
• Line 175: Fuel wood is repeated.
• Line 176: Final full stop is missing.
• Line 179: “There” instead of “Thejre”
• Line 182: Full stop is missing after reference [25].
• Line 183: Include the name of the study in addition to the reference number. This happens along the manuscript.

In addition, I missed relevant information such as the years included in the study.

I identified the results section as the weakest, especially in terms of structure, but not only. It must be strongly improved by focussing only on study results. Results from other studies must be moved in the introduction section (see lines 188-193 or 197-198 as examples). Discussion of results must be allocated to a new section about discussion. Otherwise, this section could be titled “Results and discussion”. Also, results should not be repeated, for example, the amount of Eucalyptus wood produced (see lines 214, 540 and figure 4).

I also recommend summarizing results defined in section 3.2 in a table which would compare main actor’s attributes (e.g., wood volume traded, wood source, wood fate, main activities, activity cost, profit, etc.). This table would facilitate the reader to have an overview of the value chain situation. However, I found some of the main actor’s attributes of lower importance since are not discussed and do not affect final conclusions (e.g., family size, age, sex or education).

Figure 4 is very relevant for the manuscript since organize main study results. However, it must be improved, and it could be merged with figure 3. Some recommendations are:

• Links between actors and activities should be identified
• Different arrow sizes generate confusion
• Arrows going below boxes generate confusion
• Meaning of dashed-dotted lines is not included in the legend
• Caption should be located below legend

Conclusions and recommendations section seems to be a summary of the project, mainly the first paragraph. Instead, section 3.6 which is probably one of the most relevant should be moved to conclusions.

Other examples of minor, but relevant errors identified are:

• Table 3 caption: “growers” instead of “grwowers”
• Line 291: “that” is repeated
• Line 296: Does “households” refer to eucalyptus growers?
• References to missing figures (see lines 542 and 560)
• Line 598: Refer to table 6 instead to table 5.
• Line 696: Full stop is missing.

Because of the comments exposed, my overall recommendation is to reject the manuscript after major revisions. The main reason is a low structure quality which affects to the clarity of the whole manuscript. Although the manuscript starts with a clear abstract and introduction, after the methodological section its quality regarding the use of English and its structure drops significantly and affects its readability.

Author Response

Dear anonymous reviewer, 

I found all your comments and suggestions very valuable and incorporated one by one as can be seen in the attached author response file.

kind regards,

Amare

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Value Chain Analysis of Eucalyptus Wood Products at the Blue Nile Highlands of Northwestern Ethiopia

The article contains a lot of valuable data. Many interesting issues have been described. The topic of this research and output might be useful for the Sustainability readers. Please analyze the text in terms of the comments below.

Introduction

• The Introduction section describes, in principle, the local issues related to the management of agricultural land for the cultivation of trees. Please refer to international issues. The data presented are also of international interest. You have to modify the introduction and place the information from international literature in an international context like e.g.:

- Baum, S.; Weih, M.; Busch, G.; Kroiher, F.; Bolte, A. The impact of Short Rotation Coppice plantations on phytodiversity. Landbauforsch. Vti Agric. For. Res. 2009, 3, 163–170.

- Baum, C.; Leinweber, P.; Weih, M.; Lamersdorf, N.; Dimitriou, I. Effects of short rotation coppice with willows and poplar on soil ecology. Landbauforsch. Vti Agric. For. Res. 2009, 3, 183–196.

- Mola-Yudego, B. Regional Potential Yields of Short Rotation Willow Plantations on Agricultural Land in Northern Europe. Silva Fenn. 2010, 44, 63–76, doi:10.14214/sf.163.

- Lindegaard, K.N.; Adams, P.W.R.; Holley, M.; Lamley, A.; Henriksson, A.; Larsson, S.; Von Engelbrechten, H.G.; Lopez, G.E.; Pisarek, M. Short Rotation Plantations Policy History in Europe: Lessons from the Past and Recommendations for the Future. Food Energy Secur. 2016, 5, 125–152, doi:10.1002/fes3.86.

- Boruszewski, P.; Laskowska, A.; Jankowska, A.; Klisz, M.; Mionskowski, M. Potential Areas in Poland for Forestry Plantation. Forests 2021, 12, 1360. https://doi.org/10.3390/f12101360.

• Please describe aspects like nature conservation, landscape aesthetics etc.
• Please correct the spelling of the words. There are typos in some words e.g.

- line 70: secotrs - should be sectors,

- line 83: opportuniries – should be opportunities.

 

Materials and Methods

• Please provide information about the climate in this area: average temperatures, rainfall.
• Line 103: What does “Source: Researcher, 2021” mean? Please correct the entry. If the Figure is original (it was created by the authors of the article, there is no need to provide the source).
• Lines 112 – 113: Sample size was determined using [20] sample size formula (Table 1) – Please improve this entry.
• Line 170: Please standardize the notation - words with capital letters.
• Line 175: Please delete one term - fuel wood.
• Line 179: Thejre or There?

Results

• Line 213: Figure 2 – Total area in Figure 1 in which units?
• Line 213: “Sorurce: Authors, 2021” ?
• Line 227: decsions – should be decisions.
• Line 242: It seems to me that the amounts should be accurate to the whole. Four digits after the decimal point are redundant.
• Line 395: Qunantity?
• Line 598: In Table 5 or 6?
• Line 669: Photo: By researcher, 2021 – Please delete these records.

The study is very extensive. However, there are no references to the literature data in this section. Please discuss the results/observations/relevance with reference to international literature.

 

 

Author Response

Dear anonymous reviewer,

I have received all your comments and suggestions and incorporated points one by one as seen in the attached author response file and main manuscript uploaded in the system.

Kind regards,

Amare

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Value Chain Analysis of Eucalyptus Wood Products at the Blue Nile Highlands of Northwestern Ethiopia

The article has been significantly improved. The text of the article also refers to the indicated international issues. The analysis of the research results and the discussion were improved. However, there are errors in the text that should be corrected:

 

Line 150: …and average annual temperature of…

There is no data here, please provide them precisely.

Lines 186 – 187: …by distributing missing figure (16) to the rest kebeles…

This is an incomprehensible statement. I am asking for improvement.

Line 310: Appendix 1 can be presented in the article as the Table in this paragraph. Describe it briefly.

Lines 316 – 317: The spectacular expansion trend of Eucalyptus plantation shows the existence surplus supply of wood in the study area…

I would suggest using the word “meaningful” or “significant” instead of “spectacular”.

Table 5: Sex or gender? Male or female in parentheses? Add i.e according to the scheme: Male/Female (%)

Table 5: You should analyze the results from the last row, i.e. about F .... What do these results of the statistical analysis mean?

Line 787: as coined in…?

I would suggest using the word “stated” or “showed”.

Line 789: The methods were also devised by different studies including [27, 29,45].

I propose to write: The methods were also devised by different studies [27, 29,45].

Lines 802 – 803: These conclusions are in line with the studies including [46,13,47].

I propose to write: These conclusions are in line with the other studies [46,13,47].

Line 806: spectacularly? See comments for Lines 316 – 317.

Line 815: In a nut shell…

This is colloquialism. Please use i.e. generally.

Line 828: loosening?

Please use another word.

Line 847: A similar finding was reported by [49].

Pleae use a record in accordance with the requirements of the journal.

 Lines 847 - 850: Sawdust is an important byproduct produced during wood processing which can also be taken as a good opportunity for the making processed wood products like particle board, chip wood and plywood [8].

- Please correct this entry. What's the difference between particle board and chip wood?

- Is it possible to make plywood with sawdust?

- I propose to write: … good opportunity for the particleboards production.

Lines 872 – 877: A similar rationalization was given by Iqbal [8] in his study of developments in tall wood and hybrid buildings and environmental impacts which determined the potential of land for fast growing tree plantations in Poland considering marginal agricultural lands. of the Eucalyptus wood value chain which need to be addressed and promoted for the inherent transformation of the wood sector value chain and improve livelihood of growers.

- Igbal is under 8 number?

- Please refer to literature no. 8.

- Does Article 8 mention tall wood and hybrid buildings? Were such terms used? What do they mean?

- Is that one or two sentences?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your kind review and suggestion for the betterment of our manuscript. We have incorporated all the points one by one and revised the manuscript with track changes as seen in Author response file attached and main manuscript. 

Kind regards,

Amare

Author Response File: Author Response.docx