Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment
, Kotamraju N. Ravi Kumar 4, Srinivasa Konduru 5, Venkatesh Paramesh 6, Gandhamanagenahalli A. Rajanna 7, Shashidhar K. Shankarappa 8, Duraisamy Jaganathan 1, Sheela Immanuel 1, Ankush L. Kamble 9, Raman Selvakumar 2, Kingsly T. Immanuelraj 10, Boopathy Raja Manogaran 11, Anbukani Perumal 2, Umamageswari Maruthanayagam 12 and Sivalingam Niranjan 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments
I have reviewed the paper entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Agri-Export Zone of Western India: An Economic Assessment”. This study analyzed the opportunities for farmers in the protected cultivation of horticultural crops based on economic assessment. The manuscript is well written and can be significant for readers of this journal. However, I have some concerns about the abstract, discussion and conclusions section. These parts need improvement before possible publication in the journal. Some specific comments are given below.
Specific comments
L 23: abstract section did not contain any numeric values, obtained in the results section. It should be the combination of results and conclusions. “the results revealed that” before this line, add some numbers to support facts.
L86-88: please write some research gaps following with objectives.
L 95: if you make an info graph containing details of your sites and selection procedure. It would be easy to understand the method.
L 197: “T” should be written with “he”.
L 200: The discussion section is not enough. There should be some detailed discussion according to relevant results. In fact, authors need to write reasoning for results rather than “these results are in accordance with previous studies”.
L 362: conclusions section seems to be the introduction part. Conclusions must be relevant to results and facts rather than the importance of the study. However, the implication section is well written.
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewer's comments and incorporating the corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of article NO: Sustainability-1737091- MDPI
The manuscript compared the economic aspects of protected and open field cultivation of horticultural crops using the data acquired through farmers’ interaction in Pune and Nasik Districts of Maharashtra. This is an interesting study leading to policy formulations for adoption of protected cultivation for enhancing livelihood of stakeholders. However, following specific issues can be addressed to enhance the quality of its content besides readability.
#1 There are several grammatical errors which are highlighted and suggested for improvement in the *.pdf format of the reviewed manuscript. Besides this, there is only one reference each of 2019 and 2020 as the recent article and these are also not specific to the analysis undertaken in the study. Therefore, review of recent articles pertaining to use of NPV, BCR, IRR etc. ; use of logistic regression model would add more value to the manuscript.
#2. There are several places where the statement is not supported by a valid reference viz. mention of the life of poly house and shade net to be 12 years and the interest of working and fixed capital to be 7% and 12%, respectively etc.
#3. The title of the manuscript can be modified as suggested in the reviewed manuscript and the “Agri-Export Zone of Maharashtra” becomes generic and need to be replaced with the study area. Besides this, the study are details is not appearing in the manuscript except the mention of two districts of Maharashtra and the reason for taking up this location need to be mentioned in the revised manuscript.
#4. There are mention of irrigation systems in the manuscript, but which irrigation method is used (whether drip, sub surface drip or drip tape or other irrigation method in both protected and open house) would enhance the clarity of the manuscript for better understanding by the reader.
#5. There is mention of the use of the binary logistic regression in data analysis. However, information about the data partitioning for testing, training and validation sets and its results in predicting the probability of acceptance of protected cultivation is missing in the manuscript. It is not clear, whether there was any validation of the developed logistic regression equation in the study using the acquired data was undertaken or not?
#6. Sustainability aspect in protected cultivation and shade net cultivation in terms of enhanced income besides the soil and water quality issues are not addressed in the manuscript. Are these beyond the specified objective and scope of the manuscript? However, a mention of this would add more value to the manuscript. Moreover, use of IoT and sensor based irrigation and fertilizer scheduling techniques adopted by the farmers (if any) can also be mentioned.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewer's comments and incorporating the corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1737091
Title: Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Agri-Export Zone of Western India: An Economic Assessment
This manuscript is based on primary data collected from farmers practicing protected and open field cultivation in Maharashtra during 2018-19 with main focused area of Pune, Nasik districts of Maharashtra. In this manuscript, the authors tried to address different dimensions of the current scenario. I believe this manuscript will be considered as great contribution to the future horticultural crops cultivation and business.
I believe the following comments need to be addressed;
This manuscript is generally well written however, English needs to be revised by a native English speaker or specialist.
Proper template format needs to be followed.
Abstract: The abstract need to be more focused instead of elaborative initial sentences. The sentence structure in results and conclusions need to be revised for the better understanding of the readers. Your manuscript need to follow consistency, like in the start you have used protected cultivation and then you switched to polyhouse cultivation. Please keep similar to avoid confusion for the readers.
Introduction: The beginning sentence of the introduction is an important indicator of the rest of your work. Please revise the very first sentence of the introduction for better understanding and conceptualization.
I made some of the comments in the main text of your MS. There are several other grammatical and typo mistakes. Please pay special attention to sentence structure and improve.
Please provide the study with a proper hypothesis in the last paragraph of the introduction.
Materials and methods: What were the criteria for the selection of farmers for this specific study?
Are these farmers officially registered with the government?
Is this study belong to an educational institute?
Nothing is mentioned above the conduction level of the study? i.e. Graduation level or post-graduation level?
What application was used for the calculation of economics of the study?
Results and discussion: There should be proper citations following the results of the study.
I believe it’s important to follow international rules for calculating the economics of your study to attract international viewers.
The names of plants should be followed by scientific names for the ease of the readers.
References: Please carefully check all references and follow the format of the journal.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewer's comments and incorporating the corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The subject seems to be interesting and relevant in the context. However, the study is really poor in the theoretical framework, and it is much more a report of a research, than an article.The number of references is terribly low.
One aspect, that could help in reinforcing the general framework, is the problematisation of environmental impact of greenhouses and protected fields. The article speaks about the need to protect because of the climate changes, nothing has been said about the negative impacts on the environment and the climate. A second neglected fact is the social effects: how is it affecting social inclusion and access to land of smallholders?
As suggestion to give deeper frame, I suggest to problematise the environmental and social impact of protected agriculture. In particular the negative effect of protections on the environment, biodiversity, water distribution and so on. Other aspect to be considered, the effects on social inclusion especially for smallholders, access to land and social redistribution of income.
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewer's comments and incorporating the corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is carefully modified according to my suggestions. However, I have observed some minor mistakes and recommend minor revision. Please correct these mistakes before publication.
L 29-30: Put space after “protected cultivation”.
L 30-31: this sentence is not clear. Please use protected cultivation of rose and capsicum had higher cultivation cost (300%), gross return (250%) and net return (190%) as compared to open cultivation.
L 64: and climate change? Make the sentence structure clear.
L 94: centre on “Pomegranate”.
L 148: put space and dot after “respectively”.
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewer's comments and incorporating the minor corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The social and environmental implication of greenhouses are still largely underestimated and inappropriately reported. However, the focus of the article is to give an economic assessment of protected cultivation. There is usually this blindness between economists about social and environmental unsustainability of businesses. I suggest to the authors to keep it in mind for future researches. With my best regards
Author Response
To
The Editor
Sustainability
Dear Editor,
I am submitting a revised version manuscript entitled “Protected Cultivation of Horticultural Crops as a Livelihood Opportunity in Western India: An Economic Assessment” in response to the reviewers' comments and incorporating the minor corrections in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
