Effect of Farm Size on Sustainability Dimensions: Case of Durum Wheat in Northern Tunisia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper has several big problems, so it is not mature enough to be published.

1.The introduction, literature review and methodology parts are not organized in a clearly logical way. Therefore, I couldn't understand what the knowledge gap or the practical problem that the authors want to address is.

2.The indicator system is the most important part of the methodology. However, I didn’t understand how the indicator system was formulated. Which indicators are from the previous research of others? Which of them are put forward by the authors? Why did the authors apply these indicators? 

3.As to the sustainability scores, how did the authors get the scores? The authors didn’t introduce the scoring process at all. You gave the scores? Or you invited participants to score these indicators? I have no idea how the scores were obtained. 

4.What is the global sustainability? The authors didn’t describe this concept at all. It’s quite confusing.

5.Moreover, the English language of this paper requires extensive revision and improvement. I just name a few grammar errors and confusing expressions in the introduction part.

Line 26-30: This statement is not clear enough.

Line 44-46: cereals participate in the protection ?? I didn’t understand the whole sentence.

Line 50-53: What does this long sentence mean? I couldn’t get it.

Line 56: productive production model??

Line 57: consist in??

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The selection of a sample size of 200 should be clearly defined to avoid biases and ambiguity in the selection process. The conclusion and policy statement should align with the research work strictly and the type of cereal crop should be indicated. 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper analyses farm size's effects on cereal production's sustainability in Tunisia, thereby fitting well into the international literature on the topic. However, I have just a few significant corrections:

The introduction - The originality of the paper must be specified in more detail.

The literature review should be more specific – it must be focused more on the paper’s main idea - the linkage between farm size and sustainability. Also, the literature review should focus on examples of other research from other countries. Authors should focus on papers in high-ranked scientific journals which are not later than five years.

Results are presented without any deeper discussion. I advise authors to make separate section discussions and compare their results with previous results in the scientific literature. Every part of the result section should be deeper discussed. Also, the reasons of the results should be better underlined.

Policy implications should be noted. Sustainability is a prestigious international journal, so readers outside Tunisia should be interested in this research and find the contribution of this paper.

The character of the conclusion is too general, and the authors should also focus on policy implications and limitations. Authors should better underline conclusions, and intentions for future research should be noted at the end of the conclusions.

References should be improved with more papers with prestigious scientific papers from journals with impact factors.

 

Paper is not in line with technical guidelines for this journal (for example, tables, format of numbers, figures,…)

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article deals with the highly important topic of farm sustainability in economic, social and environmental terms. The article does not contain new, ground-breaking content. However, the article is well-written and easy to understand. Each stage of the research process has been adequately carried out and described.

However, there are some issues that could be improved.    
1. It would be interesting to indicate the volume of cereal imports in Tunisia.
2. It would be useful to include a map showing the areas where the surveys were carried out.
3. the most serious objection: not a very comprehensive literature review. The issue of farm sustainability is extremely extensively covered. The authors focused on only a few and not the most important literature items.
4. The lack of a clearly stated aim of the work. Therefore, Line 71-75 - replace with "The aim of the work was...".

Author Response

Response to Revewer4

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors revised the manuscript carefully and made the logic more clear. However, there are still several problems that need to be further solved.

Abstract:

"In fact, the value of the score of each sustainability scale is a function of the farm size. "

I don't understand this sentence. As it is a key conlcusion, I suggest the authors make further explanation.

Introduction: 

1. Line 65-68 and others, for example "[5] assessed the sustainability of dairy farms"

I suggest the authors revise this sentence to "M ’Hamdi (2009) assessed the sustainability of dairy farms [5]."

2. "However, to our knowledge, no studies dealing with cereal sector specially durum wheat in Norther of Tunisia using in-depth statistical analyses were conducted. In order to supply to this gap, we will answer the following research question: Does farm size affects the sustainability of durum wheat production?"

Since no study focused on the durum wheat, you just need to assess the durum wheat to fill the gap. Why did you need to answer the farm size question? After reading the introduction, I still don't understand why the authors focus on the farm size. The authors need to further explain this, as farm size is the key factor in this research.

Literature review

I suggest the authors move this part to the introduction.

Methodology

1. There are two 3.2. There are many errors in the format. Please check them carefully.

2. "three scales of sustainability: economic, environmental and social"

I suggest the authors consider dimensions or aspects to replace scales. Scale means the size or extent or levels of something.

3. I suggest the authors add the calculation equations of economic, social and environmental sustainability, respectively, and move the equation of total sustainability (Line 191) to the section 3.2.

4. I understand that the global sustainability may come from the IDEA method, but it sounds really weird. What is global sustainability? Will you compare your results with those from other countries on the global level? I think your results are quite local or national to some extent. I would suggest replacing global sustainability with total sustainability.

5. Figure 1 needs further improvement.

Please show the location of Tunisia on the globe, if spatial data is available. Please mark the capital of Tunisia. Please distinguish the country boundary and the governorate boundary.

Discussion

The authors should rewrite the discussion and use subheadings to divide the discussion into several parts.

The discussion part should include (A) the significance of results - what do they say, in scientific terms; (B) the inner validation of results, against the study goals or hypotheses; (C) the external validation of results, against those of similar studies from other countries, identified in the literature; (D) the importance of the results, meaning their contribution (conceptual or methodological) to the theoretical advancement of the field; (E) a summary of the study limitations and directions for overcoming them in the future research. 

Conclusion

I suggest the authors move the policy implication to the discussion part, and leave a short but strong conclusion for the whole research.

 

Author Response

All the comments were taken into account,

Reviewer 1

 

Comment:

1.The introduction, literature review and methodology parts are not organized in a clearly logical way. Therefore, I couldn't understand what the knowledge gap or the practical problem that the authors want to address is.( Reformulated)

2.The indicator system is the most important part of the methodology. However, I didn’t understand how the indicator system was formulated. Which indicators are from the previous research of others? Which of them are put forward by the authors? Why did the authors apply these indicators? (reorganized)

3.As to the sustainability scores, how did the authors get the scores? The authors didn’t introduce the scoring process at all. You gave the scores? Or you invited participants to score these indicators? I have no idea how the scores were obtained. .(introduced modality in tables 1,2,3)

 

4.What is the global sustainability? The authors didn’t describe this concept at all. It’s quite confusing.(explained just after the table 5)

5.Moreover, the English language of this paper requires extensive revision and improvement. I just name a few grammar errors and confusing expressions in the introduction part. (Revised)

Line 26-30: This statement is not clear enough. (Reformulated)

Line 44-46: cereals participate in the protection ?? I didn’t understand the whole sentence. (Reformulated)

Line 50-53: What does this long sentence mean? I couldn’t get it. (Reformulated)

Line 56: productive production model?? (Reformulated)

Line 57: consist in?? (Reformulated)

 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is much better now.

Author Response

All the comments were taken into account,

Reviewer 3

Comment: The paper analyses farm size's effects on cereal production's sustainability in Tunisia, thereby fitting well into the international literature on the topic. However, I have just a few significant corrections:

The introduction - The originality of the paper must be specified in more detail.( This comment was taken into account,)

The literature review should be more specific – it must be focused more on the paper’s main idea - the linkage between farm size and sustainability. Also, the literature review should focus on examples of other research from other countries. Authors should focus on papers in high-ranked scientific journals which are not later than five years. (This comment was taken into account)

Results are presented without any deeper discussion. I advise authors to make separate section discussions and compare their results with previous results in the scientific literature. Every part of the result section should be deeper discussed. Also, the reasons of the results should be better underlined.( This comment was taken into account,)

Policy implications should be noted. Sustainability is a prestigious international journal, so readers outside Tunisia should be interested in this research and find the contribution of this paper. .( This comment was taken into account)

The character of the conclusion is too general, and the authors should also focus on policy implications and limitations. Authors should better underline conclusions, and intentions for future research should be noted at the end of the conclusions. .( This comment was taken into account,)

References should be improved with more papers with prestigious scientific papers from journals with impact factors..(This comment was taken into account)

Paper is not in line with technical guidelines for this journal (for example, tables, format of numbers, figures,) (This comment was taken into account)

 

 

 

 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have revised the manuscript carefully, so I have no more comments. Before publication, however, I suggest the editor help check the format of the manuscript, especially the citation format in the main text.