Local Engagement in the Agricultural Cooperatives (ACs) Operation in Cambodia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are notes in the file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank for your kind comments and suggestions.

 

With best regrads

Serey

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper explores engagement in agrarian cooperatives in Cambodia. The study reveals that the capacity and management of the boards were the critical constraints to motivating local involvement; local engagement is associated with access to water resources. The cooperatives do not promote access to agricultural inputs. Several problems have been noted: poor management, inadequate capital accumulation, unavailable of loans, mismanagement of loans, lack of skilled personnel, high illiterate level of members, small values of share, lack of access to credit facilities, and lack of support from agricultural extension services.

However, some aspects must be improved:

1.- The deep clarification and explanation of the reasons for low local engagement, lack of farmers' participation, and unavailability of loans, ... . 

2.- What alternatives/solutions could be proposed to face these problems?.

3.- And finally, the characterization of these cooperatives: typologies, crops, ... . 

Minor changes:

- page 1, lines 27-28: "access to access to";

- maps must be improved, cooperatives per inhabitants, in relative numbers (%);

- tables 2, 5 and 6, must be shortened;  

- page 23, line 826: "are also is also".

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank for your comments and suggestions.

With best regards

Serey

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this study. The topic of this paper is interesting, and with potential to dive deep inside, however, I have some comments and recommendations to be addressed as follows:

1. line 69 – The authors didn't explain the abbreviation CBO.

2. The author should use the abbreviations after they are first mentioned in the text. 
For example, Agricultural Cooperatives (ACs) are used in the title of the research and it’s enough; Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in Abstract etc. 

So my opinion is that the authors need to put all the abbreviations and their explanations before the main body of the paper in the paragraph “Abbreviations”.

3. The title of Figure 5 must be put after the Figure.

4. Line 559 - US$250one?

5. Line 576, 815-816 - access to access to the competitive market?

6. Line 614 - they s are?

7. Line 660-664 – the prices must be changed from national currency to $US.

8. Lines 774-775 – It’s a very strange conclusion: The farmer members use skills and techniques to access water resources from the nearby wetland or underground water for their crops. 

I don’t understand it. If a farmer would like to access water sources, must he have some skills?

9. Line 819 - Climate change has caused the change in water partners?

10. Line 826 - are also is also?

11. Line 861 – the numeric of figures of the paragraph (Appendix B: CFA-First-Ordered Factor Model) should be changed (from A1, A2… to B1, B2…).

12. I'm not a qualified person to judge about the English language and style but a lot of mistakes in the text.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank for your comments and suggestions.

With best regards

Serey

Author Response File: Author Response.docx