Dynamics of Environmental Conservation Agriculture (ECA) Utilization among Fujioka Farmers in Japan with High Biodiversity Conservation Awareness but Low ECA Interest
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors address an interesting topic, that of ECA methods in Japan. I believe the paper is of interest to the readership of the journal. However, a number of minor comments need to be addressed:
Minor comments:
- Is the sample size adequate for generalizing the results?
- English wording, especially in the tables needs to be improved
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. our reply is in the attached file. We are happy to explain further if you still have further comments or questions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Of course, the research is interesting and addresses current issues of environmental improvement as a set of conditions necessary for human life. However, obtained during the study "highlighted importance of ECA information dissemination as evidenced by the presence of a knowledge gap on how ECA translates into climate change advocacies", "importance of increasing the ECA uptake of farmers", «heterogeneity of factors that affect any given farming community with respect to the strategies that can effectively drive ECA adoption» in general are known to the general public, so they are not of particular scientific value and are not specific.
Tables, especially 5-8 need at least a basic analysis.
There are doubts about the representativeness of the statistical sample (only 46 completed questionnaires).
In the abstract, the purpose of this study is not specified specifically. In the introduction, the aim of the article is twice shown as "to report the factors affecting ECA adoption of farmers in a prefecture with low ECA utilization (…)". This formulation of the goal is not specific enough. Accordingly, the recommendations in the conclusions have a rather vague wording. It is not clear who should deal with the intensification of ECA information dissemination among rural communities and farmers alike and with the promotion of farmer-consumer market channels and the extension of 458 ECA products to local industries.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. our reply is in the attached file. We are happy to explain further if you still have further comments or questions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Would like to request follow same citation pattern as required in the journal
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. our reply is in the attached file. We are happy to explain further if you still have further comments or questions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
This study tackles an interesting topic bridging environmental and social sciences, and it is written in a mostly clear and engaging language. However, there are some minor and major improvements that need to be made before it can be considered for publication.
Abstract
L23: If you have to mention this species in the abstract (which I don’t think is necessary – see the following section), specify the yaritanago is an endangered fish. Also, isn’t it just one species?
Introduction
L30: “link” is better than “nexus”.
L51: There’s some kind of text size problem in “environment-friendly”.
L59-67: More details and references about how specific ECA-related activities reduce carbon emissions would be better.
L95-115: There’s a lot of information about this yaritanago fish, considering that the study itself did not involve this species, and that it wasn’t even mentioned in the questionnaire as far as I could tell. While it is certainly worth to mention the yaritanago as an example of the local conservation efforts and public engagement, I think it would be better to substantially reduce its role in the text, replacing it with more varied and detailed info about the ECA role in biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.
L100-101: This sentence about the various species of fish can be removed.
L109-110: The sentence in brackets is redundant, remove it.
L110-112. You can remove this sentence too.
L117-130: Another, perhaps excessively detailed example. Less details about these two specific examples (without removing them completely – it’s nice to have specific examples), more details about the broader advantages of ECA.
Materials and Methods
L173-175: This criteria for the choice of the city should be mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph, not at the end.
L178-195: The details about the questionnaire and the statistical analysis here are inadequate. Even if the result tables report the contents of the questionnaire, it would be nice to report an empty questionnaire template (with some explanations) in the Supplementary Information and cite it here with a brief description of its main contents. As for the statistical analyses, some details that are given in the results should be moved in this section (see following comments).
Results
L204-214: Is this based on the aforementioned MAFF report? Also, the focus of your study is the city of Fujioka (low-ECA area), so this whole bit is kinda pointless, especially given the fact that it is rather short and descriptive, not really that informative. Maybe this info could find a better place in the introduction.
L207: Any explanations for the disproportionally high level of ECA in Shiga?
L259-265: These details about the statistical analysis should be in the Materials and Methods (see comments above).
Discussion
L353: “Dessert et al. (2019) categorized behavioral…”
L361: Add “enough” after “profitable”.
L361-364: This couple of sentences sounds weird and vaguely contradictory (it seems that farmers are voicing the fact that ECA is profitable, but the following excerpt says otherwise).
L364: It’s not necessary to identify respondents by number in the text, it tells us nothing about them.
Conclusions
L436: Why a good opportunity? Maybe a good reason? Rephrase a bit.
L441: “…species such as yaritanago”.
L446-447: “…preventing this mechanism from being fully effective.”
L454: “helps” instead of “recapitulate”. Also, put “financially” before “aid”.
L457: Highlight that it is particularly important to disseminate info about the way ECA can mitigate climate change. In fact, the whole “conclusion” sections could be reworked a bit to make even more clear the main conclusions, i. e. that a) Farmers care about environmental problems (which is great) but b) They do not perceive ECA to be a way to mitigate climate change (a problem to be solved through science education) and c) They are discouraged from adopting ECA by the costs and the difficulties in getting subsidies (a problem to be solved with an increase in the availability and accessibility of such subsidies).
Figures
Figure 2 and 3 should be merged in a single figure – look at all the space available in Fig. 3, and what little information is conveyed by Fig. 2 on its own!
Tables
The “Total” lines are always 46 / 100%, so why report them at all? Remove them, the tables are already big enough as they are. In fact, I wonder if some of this info could be moved to the Supplementary Material to make the paper itself less crowded with tables.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. our reply is in the attached file. We are happy to explain further if you still have further comments or questions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors have addressed most issues, I only have some minor suggestions at this point.
L24 and L90: In both the abstract and the main text the first time you mention the yaritanago you still don't mention that is a fish (I stress this out because it's unlikely that anyone outside japan is familiar with this animal).
L88: Include the Toki bird scientific name the first time you mention it.
L80-85: This part about Shiga should be moved after the sentence in L98-100 about Shiga itself.
L98: Remove "high ECA utilization".
L142: You already mentioned the scientific name, you can use the common name or the abbreviation T. lanceolata from now on.
Fig. 2-3: I still think these two figures could be easily merged without loosing information, i.e. by replacing the generic map of Japan of figure 3 with the more detailed ECA utilization map of figure 2.
Table 3: There is still a unnecessary "Total" line; additionally, it's missing the column names for "Frequency" and "Percentage".
Table 1, 2 and 3: I still think that at least these tables (which are the most descriptive, as they do not contain results of statistical analyses) could be moved to Supplementary Info while still being referenced and described in the text.
L487 (also L492, maybe others): Put "interviewed" before "farmers" (it's good that you removed the numbers, but it still needs to be perfectly clear that you are talking about the farmers you interviewed).
Author Response
Thank you very much for the second review comments. We have addressed them and its explanation can be found in the file attached herealong. Your comments have helped us to improve the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
