The article entitled “Rural ecological environment promotes the improvement of the mechanism of bilateral economic interest connection between agriculture and enterprises under the new retail format” is written very well and according to the journal's scope. It is acceptable for publication after addressing the following issues.

1. I am not satisfied with the structure of the abstract. Please rewrite the abstract following this structure: Main objectives of the study, use methods, empirical results, and policy implications.

2. Please write the structure of the article at the end of the introduction.

3. What kind of Rural ecological environment that you want to include in the study. Firstly, you must explain the rural ecological environment in the introduction. Secondly, in the introduction, please describe the meaning of the bilateral economic interest connection between agriculture and enterprises?

4. In the second paragraph of the literature review, you have to justify the given statement with given studies as “In foreign countries, the main organizational form of agricultural industrialization in some countries is an agricultural cooperative organization composed of small and medium-sized enterprises [1-3]”

[1] Extreme weather events risk to crop-production and the adaptation of innovative management strategies to mitigate the risk

[2] Factors that facilitate the development of small agricultural cooperative farm alliances

[2] Understanding farmers’ intention and willingness to install renewable energy technology: A solution to reduce the environmental emissions of agriculture.

6. Please improve and justify the findings of your study with previous literature.

5. At the end of the conclusion, you must write study limitations and recommendations for future studies.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please review the attached file .

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled " Rural ecological environment promotes the improvement of the mechanism of bilateral economic interest connection between agriculture and enterprises under the new retail format " intends to identify the problems in the bilateral economic interest connection mechanism, and how to explore the improvement and innovation of the connection mechanism based on these problems.

The research is original; it could be characterized as novel and in my opinion important to the field, it also has an almost appropriate structure, and the language has been used well. In the meanwhile, the manuscript has a good extent (about 6,400 words) and it is comprehensive. The table (1) and figures (19) make the paper reflect well to the reader. For this reason, paper has a "diversity look", not only tables, not only numbers, not only words. It is advised to revise figures, compare them, or use appendix or present some figures with tables, if you agree.

The title, I think, is all right. The abstract did not reflect well the findings of this study. Please revise the abstract of the manuscript and do not forget abstract need to encourage readers to download the paper. The Abstract needs further work. It is not clear. Abstracts should indicate the research problem/purpose of the research, provide some indication of the design/methodology/approach taken, the findings of the research and its originality/value in terms of its contribution to the international literature. The abstract has a nice length (about 170 words). Please, revise the abstract, it must be up to 200 words long, [see: Instructions for Authors / Manuscript Submission Overview / Accepted File Formats - (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions#submission or https://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/sustainability-template.dot)].

The introduction is effective, clear, and well organized but it wasn’t introduced and put into perspective what research is negotiating. Moreover, it does not contain a clear formulation and description of the research problem. Please insert a clear description and justification of the problem the article deals with. Your literature research should be critical and more informed, rather than listing previous research. This section requires significant improvement. Because descriptive statistics are used, it is advisable to state the research hypotheses and perform hypothesis testing.

Please, revise the manuscript and make the appropriate currency exchange using dollars ($) or euros (€) or both also you can keep yuan. This is because the results of the research must be directly comparable to other similar surveys that have already been carried out around the world and other such surveys will certainly be carried out, and do not forget, the journal “Sustainability” is international. You must make the appropriate currency exchange using dollars ($) or euros (€) in lines 155 – 156.

For the Methodology chapter, the research conduct has been tested in several areas of the world, with comparable results and will probably be tested in others. Appropriate references to the methodology included in the already published bibliography but you can put more references, from all over the world. Do not forget, the journal “Sustainability” is international. Moreover, you do not say something about the study area.

Make clear why you chose 105 enterprises in Huizhou as a sample. The sample of respondents (105) seems too small for Huizhou, or it is not documented why 105 and not 87, 200 or 1105, which is the population of enterprises in Huizhou.

Also use the appropriate research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, as journal wants (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions).

Please fill in the subchapters accordingly as: Author Contributions, Funding, Institutional Review Board Statement, Informed Consent Statement, Data Availability Statement, Acknowledgments and Conflicts of Interest, according to the instructions of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [see: Instructions for Authors / Manuscript Preparation/ Back Matter - (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions#submission or https://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/sustainability-template.dot)].

The results section is good. The argument flows and is reinforced through the justification of the way elements are interpreted. But the same does not apply to the Discussion (because you don’t have this section, it is with the results) and Conclusion. It is advised to have the Discussion and revise the Conclusion. Both sections should be consistent in terms of Proposal, Problem statement, Results, and of course, future work. Your conclusion section does not do justice to your work. Make your key contributions, arguments, and findings clearer. You must refer to the literature and previous studies in your discussion section.

Please revise the manuscript and include more references which already exist in the bibliography. I would be much more satisfied if the number of references was slightly higher (about 60 - 70 references) and I would appreciate it if it also included data other than Asia for example America, Europe, or Australia. In this way it is documented that a method that is tested in a place with its own characteristics can be implemented in other places around the world.

More discussion is needed, comparing the results of this work related to attributes with those of other studies. I believe that the conclusions section or discussion should also include the main limitations of this study and incorporate possible policy implications. I think something more should be said about practical implications.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please review the attached file .

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic of the paper is important but rather poorly presented.

The research purpose should be clearly stated in the introduction.

Please specify the uniqueness of the presented research and its contribution to science.

I believe that a broader review of the literature related to the presented topic should be made.

Most of the drawings are illegible. They are hard to interpret.

The article requires significant improvement.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please review the attached file .

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

1. I am not satisfied with revision. Regarding comment 4, the author stated, "In foreign countries, the main organizational form of agricultural industrialization in some countries is an agricultural cooperative organization composed of small and medium-sized enterprises” without providing justification or references to previous studies. In research, when you referred the statement/literature without providing citations is considered vague. Therefore, I highly suggest that the authors should update the given statement with previous studies [1-3] as “ In foreign countries, the main organizational form of agricultural industrialization in some countries is an agricultural cooperative organization composed of small and medium-sized enterprises [1-3]”

[1] Extreme weather events risk to crop-production and the adaptation of innovative management strategies to mitigate the risk

[2] Factors that facilitate the development of small agricultural cooperative farm alliances

[2] Understanding farmers’ intention and willingness to install renewable energy technology: A solution to reduce the environmental emissions of agriculture.

2. In the introduction, I highly recommend a comparative analysis of four or five studies from East Asia and Western countries that focused on promoting the rural ecological environment and improving mechanisms. Through this comparison, you have to find the research gap of your study.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please check the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has not been revised according to the first review comments. The authors studied the comments and revised the manuscript by considering a few of the comments. Two or three of the comments are responded in the new manuscript. I believe the revised manuscript has not been improved carefully and the desired level of Sustainability cannot be reached.

The following have not been satisfactorily developed:

1. Revise figures, compare them, or use appendix or present some figures with tables.

2. Insert a clear description and justification of the problem the article deals with.

3. Because descriptive statistics are used, state the research hypotheses, and perform hypothesis testing (maybe the most important for the methodology).

4. Revise the manuscript and make the appropriate currency exchange using dollars ($) or euros (€) or both also you can keep yuan (lines 245-246).

5. Say something about the study area.

6. Make clear why you chose 105 enterprises in Huizhou as a sample.

7. Use the appropriate research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, as journal wants.

8. Fill in the subchapters accordingly as: Author Contributions, Funding, Institutional Review Board Statement, Informed Consent Statement, Data Availability Statement, Acknowledgments and Conflicts of Interest, according to the instructions of Sustainability.

9. Say something about the main limitations of this study and future work.

10. The worst of all is that you say that «Thank you for your comment. I have modified it» in the cover letter.

For these reasons, the desired level of Sustainability cannot be reached.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please check the attachment .

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The current revision is now acceptable.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please check the attchment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you to the authors to address the previous comments; however, the give statements still not updated with given literature. You must have to update the given statement with given studies [1-2]

“In foreign countries, the main organizational form of agricultural industrialization in some countries is an agricultural cooperative organization composed of small and medium-sized enterprises [1-2]”

[1] Extreme weather events risk to crop-production and the adaptation of innovative management strategies to mitigate the risk: A retrospective survey of rural Punjab, Pakistan. Technovation. Volume 117, 102255

[2] "Factors that facilitate development of small agricultural cooperative farm alliances." IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. Vol. 935. No. 1. IOP Publishing, 2021.

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please check the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has not been revised according the second review comments. The authors studied the comments and revised the manuscript by considering many of the comments. I believe the revised manuscript has not been improved carefully.

The following have not been satisfactorily developed:

1. Revise figures (increase the resolution, nobody can’t read these), compare them (you have 19 figures, it is a very big number), or use appendix or present some figures with tables (you have only one).

2. Because descriptive statistics are used, state the research hypotheses and perform hypothesis testing (maybe the most important for the methodology).

3. Revise the manuscript and make the appropriate currency exchange using dollars ($) or euros (€) or both also you can keep yuan (lines 242-248) you must exchange yuan to $.

4. Make clear why you chose 105 enterprises in Huizhou as a sample. The sample of respondents (105) seems too small for Huizhou, or it is not documented why 105 and not 87, 200 or 1105, which is the population of enterprises in Huizhou, what is the sample percentage you use in your total population? say something that has some statistical stability.

5. Before the reference number use space (not … technological innovation[5]. In line 178 but technological innovation [5]. and in many points in the manuscript).

Author Response

Dear Editor

Please check the attachment .

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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Rural Ecological Environment Promotes the Improvement of the Mechanism of Bilateral Economic Interest Connection between Agricultural Enterprises and Farmers under the New Retail Format

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