The State of Play of Copper, Mineral Oil, External Nutrient Input, Anthelmintics, Antibiotics and Vitamin Usage and Available Reduction Strategies in Organic Farming across Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I am satisfied with the authors' changes to the manuscript following suggestions from the two reviewers. As such, I consider that it is now acceptable for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for accepting our revised paper for publication.

With best wishes,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

No changes are highlighted is some way in the manuscript as it should be done for a resubmission.

Some of my previous concerns were resolved, some not. Instructions for authors were not respected in editing the manuscript.

 

1. In Materials and Methods please provide the computer programs and their variants used in your research.
2. Set ALL the Tables in the same way, according to the Instructions for authors.
3. Extend Table 1 on the entire width of the page to give it a better aspect. Add a 3rd column (Ref.) and move there all the references mentioned after each statement in the 2^nd. No needed to remind the authors names (i.e. Giller [78], Büchi et al. [79], Anglade, Billen, and Garnier [80], Mog-haddam et al. [81], Sulas et al. [82], Moawad, Badr El-Din, and ….); just the statement and the references supporting the statement in the 3^rd
4. Check again the Instructions for authors regarding the way of numbering sections/subsections. Certainly, the way the manuscript is presented can be much improved.
5. Remove empty lines 296-298. Revise the entire manuscript in this regard
6. Table 4, last row. You added the symbol % after "Proportion of allowed amount used by OF", but you have not removed it near each numerical value in that row! Please do it.
7. Remove “In conclusion” at the beginning of the Conclusions section. It is repetitive and obvious/non-sense.
8. Please check the Instructions for authors regarding Apendix insertion in the main manuscript.
9. Recent/relevant published papers I suggested have been omitted (check my report to your first submission) but just submitted papers (self-citation) (check the Instructions for authors) have been included (i.e.56);
10. Moreover, some included references have nothing to do with the content.
11. References are incomplete as information requested by the Instructions for authors.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your further suggestions for the text. Please see attached our answers to your comments, with citations of the parts we altered in the manuscript according to your recommendations.

With best wishes,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors responded to my requests

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

The manuscript uses primary and secondary data to analyse usage of some substances for pest control and crop nutrition on organic farming in Europe.

The topic is relevant and of interest of sustainability readers.

The manuscript is presented as a review although primary data is presented. Regarding the primary data, it adds interesting information that contributes to the discussion. On the other hand, secondary data that uses six reports are very superficially presented and analysed. That fact is especially problematic in the results section in which authors present solely total, percentages of use by country (as an example) which is certainly not the deep analysis claimed to be the objective of the manuscript. As such, I recommend a much deeper analysis of the very broad data available.

Another aspect is the very superficial discussion about the alternatives to the contentious products. Despite six reports and expert panels, alternatives are basically just mentioned. That is very disappointing as it can (and should) be one the biggest contributions of this study.

Furthermore, despite the presumable number of experts that participate in the consultation the manuscript does not fully show their findings (maybe not even superficially). As such, it difficult to understand the use of panels. (again, just percentages etc are not enough).

I finished the manuscript wondering if reading the six reports in which the study is based on would not provide me with more information.

Finally, the manuscript is wordy and editing to make it more to the point would be very beneficial.

 

 L45 – it grew “by” 8% instead of “with”.

L92- A product originated from oil is certainly not a renewable product. I suggest making that clear as such statement is not controversial.  

L94-95 – I would delete “by entering the environment”. It sounds a bit weird, and it really does not “enter the environment” but the products are applied and become integral to the environment.

L97-99 – the fact that some antibiotics are used in both humans and animals per se is not a problem. Are authors referring to the fact that humans might consume meat with antibiotics  used to treat animals and those molecules in turn could cause unintended antibiotic resistant that would affect humans themselves? I suggest rephrasing the sentence to make the intended connections clearer.

L111- What is PPP, Demeter International and BioSuisse? Are they the national bodies that regulate the use in organics?

L120-123 – Is there any evidence that the used of antibiotics is pass on to humans. Is there any evidence that a twice as long withdrawal period required for organic products ensures antibiotic free produce? Although consumers expressing their dissatisfaction with the use of antibiotics in the first place, citing evidence is important if available.

L163-165 – Most readers will not be familiar with EU horizon and ERA Net so they should be put in context. Are they public policies? Do they regulate, subsidise, incentivise organics?

L180- …RELACS reports were used as primary data….Please check writing in this sentence.

L182 – Interview “with” experts, not “of” experts.

Table 1 – the information in this table is not essential to the understanding of the study and therefore I suggest moving it to supplementary material section.

L218-221 – This section is particularly wordy and could be shortened.

L222- The methods used to choose the panel of experts, their reporting and consolidation/analysis of their findings need to be fully described. There is no information on how many experts by country/topic/work place etc. I common methodology regarding the use of panel of experts should be demonstrated here to ensure sufficiency, homogeneity (allowing for balanced comparisons).

L231-233  - Table 2 should be cited here.

Table 2 – Caption is poorly written. It should describe all the information that it contains. It also requires amendment “years organic”. What does “ave” refer to? Are mixed, arable or vegetable all the types? Make it clearef.

L241 – Those calculations were applied by using a specific software, a designed excel spreadsheet?

L256 – Until this point, no secondary data sources were mentioned but rather primary ones from the case studies. To which secondary sources are authors referring to?

Tables 3 – Caption should explain the information it provides and not only mention that it contains “common characteristics”.

L 289-290 – What do authors mean by “with 7 to 12 countries with allowed uses”?

Table 4 – What does OF mean?

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors made a Review on the state of play of copper, mineral oil, external nutrient input, anthelmintics, antibiotics and vitamin usage and available reduction strategies in organic farming across Europe. Extensive paper, well done, excepting few aspects. Please see below my suggestions:

 Keywords. Please separate them by semicolon, not by comma.

L58-61. Needs reference related to the European Commission.

L174-178. Please make the aim of the study a separate paragraph, as to be better visible. Also, I suggest to make it stronger, regarding the novelty that this paper brings to the field, as to draw attention on your paper of those interested by this topic. (What makes special this study? Which is its novelty character or its special aspects? Why have the author chosen this topic? What differentiate this paper from others in the same topic?)

Tables 1 and 3. Please remove bullets in the columns. they consume space and have no relevance. 

Table 4, last row. Please add the symbol % after "Proportion of allowed amount used by OF", and remove it near eah numerical value in that row.

Is hard to understand how the authors considered to insert 50 references (almost half of the total number of references) in the Introduction section (which is 2 and half pages), and left many paragraphs  not referenced at all in the other sections of the manuscript (18 pages with 58 references!). Or this is an original article (as its sections also are according to an original article), or the paper must be much better referenced, at every paragraph. Furthermore, Results part is very well developed, so it seems more like and article. I suggest the authors checking twice if they wish to have a review or is more proper an article.

For better supporting the text I suggest the authors to check and refer to few relevant published papers in the field of agriculture/organic farming: Samuel A.D. et al.., Enzymological and physicochemical evaluation of the effects of soil management practices, Rev. Chim. 2017, 68(10), 2243-2247. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.10.5864  ; Bungau et al. Expatiating the impact of anthropogenic aspects and climatic factors on long term soil monitoring and management. Environ Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 202, 30528-30550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14127-7 ; and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2020.10.012