Beyond the IPCC for Food: An Overarching Framework for Food Systems Sustainability Assessment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article is a very good position paper on the science policy panel on food systems and presents an approach to address the lack of conection between science and policy. One of this approach proposed by the authors,   is to improve  food sustainability assesment; however, there is not clarity on the actions and activities suggested to do this, along the article and in the conclussions.  There is a good description on the Committes responsible for Food Systems in the UN, such as the HLPE and the recent proposal during the 2021 Food Systems Summit, to create a new panel called "IPCC for Food". However, this paper does not present a clear conclussion on which proposal should be promoted or what actions are suggeste to advance in this relevant issue for Food Sustainability Systems. I recommend to complement this articule with more details on what the authors suggest to fill this gap.

Author Response

We are grateful to the reviewer for its helpful comments. As suggested, we added a new section where an operative framework is presented as a possible step towards filling the identified gap.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is about the beyond the IPCC for food: an overarching framework for food systems. In the article very important contemporary scientific problem is analyzed. This is an interesting study and its quality is good, I think. Results and discussion are clear and explanations are clearly substantiated. However, some corrections are needed: 

The authors should provide a footnote that they are willing to share their data set in Excel format with those who wish to replicate the results of this research. Abstract has to be improved by giving key findings in specific values. The research gap is not clearly stated. It should be included at the end of the Introduction.

In general, it could be started, that article is interesting from scientific point of view and is original. The results of the article are important for scientific and practical reasons, and article could be published.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for its comments. We addressed all the points raised by revising the abstract to improve clarity. Also, we clarified the research gap addressed in this paper. A general revision was also conducted to refine the general quality of the paper. We would like to point out, however, that no data results are included in our paper, which is rather a position paper. For this, no excel file is available to be shared with readers.

Reviewer 3 Report

Providing definitions or explanations for specialized terms could be useful to improve readers’ understanding, for example: GHG, footprints indicators.

Some sentences could be expressed more concisely without sacrificing clarity. For example, Line 32-In the first paragraph, instead of saying “responded to the increasing requirements of a growing population experiencing a demographic and nutritional transition to” it could be said “addressed the needs of a growing population undergoing demographic and nutritional transitions.”

While the paper discusses the importance of improving the science-policy interface, it doesn't provide concrete and actionable recommendations for how this could be achieved. Providing specific strategies, methods, or best practices could enhance the paper's impact.

The paper primarily discusses the theoretical importance of strengthening the science-policy interface but lacks a strong connection to real-world impact. It could benefit from more discussion on how improved interfaces could lead to better policy decisions and outcomes.

The conclusion could be more explicit about the key takeaways from the discussed points and their implications for strengthening the science-policy interface.

Please maintain consistent tense usage in the paper, either present or past tense.

Please use more paragraphs to enhance the readability and organization of ideas. Some paragraphs are very long.

Please break down long sentences into smaller sentences. The article has several long sentences and complex structures that might be difficult for readers to follow.  

I recommend organizing the content into clear subsections to improve overall structures and help readers navigate through the article.

 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for its helpful comments. We agree that the article needed more explicit reference to practical actions to fill the identified gap. Therefore, we added a new section describing a proposal for an operative framework that links with real-world issues and can directly guide the work of policy-makers.

The paper underwent a thorough language revision that ensured a higher clarity of sentences and paragraphs. The structure has been revised as well, to ease its comprehension by readers and increase the clarity of the work by dividing the sections in sub-section wherever needed.

Finally, the definition of key concepts such as footprint and GHG have been provided to ensure a higher comprehensibility to a wider range of readers (see lines 133-143).