Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture: Review of Indicators

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors should write future insight in the end of abstract. They have to write the full name of SALSA, PLASMA and PRISMA.

 

The introduction is not well organized. The authors have to mention the problems of this review article. They also should mention what are the relationship between agriculture and renewable energy through the proper logical way with references.

The figures and tables should be clear and the authors have to describe the figure legends.

This discussion section is not sufficient, the authors have to describe this discussion section mentioning the future insights.

The conclusion is too long. The readers would be confused because the authors have just written the results and discussion of this study. They have to write this part precisely according to title.

The authors can write the recommendations separately.

The review idea is good and interesting but the authors failed to organize this review in meaningful way. However, some precisions and queries are required before acceptance. Highlights are required in the manuscript. The citations and reference section must be double- checked. 

After all, I have read this manuscript. I realized that the manuscript could be interesting, but in the present condition of this manuscript lacks of scientific information, and not relevance. Therefore, there is no scientific contribution. In this regard, the authors are strongly advised to consider a substantial revision of this review work. However, some mistakes indicate before require improvement before acceptance. Therefore, major revision is required. The English language should be revised by a native English speaker so that the readers can easily understand.

 

 

The English language should be revised by a native English speaker so that the readers can easily understand.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for reading paper and providing valuable comments. All your comments were addressed in revised version of manuscript.  All changes in revised version of manuscript were highlighted in yellow.

To answer the comments, we created a table and answer to the comments one by one.

Sincerely yours

 

Corresponding author

 

Dalia Streimikiene

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The concept of sustainable agriculture is predicated on a delicate balance of maximizing crop productivity and maintaining economic stability, while minimizing the utilization of finite natural resources and detrimental environmental impacts. Since about 30% of the world’s energy is consumed within agri-food systems, food and energy systems must transform to cope with increasing demand and align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as climate goals. Access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy is a crucial enabler of growth and development in the agriculture sector. However, large disparities remain in the access to and use of sustainable energy for agricultural activities across regions. Within this context, the present study extracts 84 indicators from 420 papers via SCOPUS based on SALSA and PLASMA methodologies within the PRISMA protocol. The study refines these indicators based on significance and influence, offering an enriched perspective.

However, the output itself is not robust enough, including the oversimplified algorithm employed. The study design lacks robust data to understand "systematic review of indicators." It would have been useful to conduct comparative study of previous indicators or include indicators application, as these have been extensively studied in the literature. As such there are more evidences to be found for supporting the "systematic review of indicators" and that is what I would like to see occur in the future study.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for reading paper and providing valuable comments. All your comments were addressed in revised version of manuscript.  All changes in revised version of manuscript were highlighted in yellow.

To answer the comments, we created a table and answer to the comments one by one.

Sincerely yours

 

Corresponding author

 

Dalia Streimikiene

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The study draws attention to the importance of renewable energy and sustainable agriculture through an analysis of articles on the subject. In the Introduction, the authors demonstrate the close link between agriculture and sustainability. However, no new information is actually presented in this section, so this chapter could be shortened.

The methods used are appropriate to the study carried out and are among the most widely accepted and used research methods in use today.

The authors conclude that their research, based on the articles included in the study, contributes to the dissemination of the results about sustainability and renewable energies to a wider audience. In my opinion, the article effectively demonstrates the importance of the topic. At the same time, however, the result is a presentation of the increase in the number of articles written on the subject over the last 14 years, the regions of the world where most articles have been written and in which journals, the indicators used in researches, etc. This information is useful and interesting, but it does not explain the practical application. So the question is, how do these types of studies contribute to the wider application of renewable energy and sustainable agriculture?

There are some minor errors in the article that need correction:

Line 88: ”By implementing sustainable agriculture [17]” – incomplete sentence, to be completed.

Lines 422-423: four indicators are mentioned by the authors, whereas five are listed (”Economic, Environment, Institutional, Social and Technical”).

Lines 425-426: Sentence ending with: ”...agricultural practices may be divided by subheadings” is incorrectly inserted in two paragraphs.

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for reading paper and providing valuable comments. All your comments were addressed in revised version of manuscript.  All changes in revised version of manuscript were highlighted in yellow.

To answer the comments, we created a table and answer to the comments one by one.

Sincerely yours

 

Corresponding author

 

Dalia Streimikiene

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This review article by Bathaei and Štreimikiene entitled “Renewable energy and sustainable agriculture: systematic review of indicators”. I have gone through the manuscript and I found that the authors have addressed almost all queries properly and improved this manuscript significantly than the previous one. However, the minor English language editing is required for the better understanding to the readers.

 

The English language of this review article should be revised.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 

 

Thank you very much.  We did the minor English language editing is required for the better understanding to the readers.

Sincerely Yours

Corresponding author

Dalia Streimikiene

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

However, the output itself is not robust enough, including the oversimplified algorithm employed. The study design lacks robust data to understand "systematic review of indicators." It would have been useful to conduct comparative study of previous indicators or include indicators application, as these have been extensively studied in the literature. As such there are more evidences to be found for supporting the "systematic review of indicators" and that is what I would like to see occur in the future study.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

This study applied a systematic literature review approach by using SALSA and PRISMA methods, which were used before in many previous studies and all published in high-quality journals. We added related studies that support this technique and method into the discussion part (lines 506-518 with green highlighted) of the second time revised paper. Also, the main difference between review papers and other scientific papers is that review papers do not include empirical comparative studies. Or studies on indicators applications Therefore,  it is written that our paper is a “review” paper. We even deleted the word “systematic” though the methods applied show this is a systematic review paper. For your guidance, please read the principles of writing systematic review papers:

https://www.covidence.org/blog/how-to-conduct-a-systematic-review-from-beginning-to-end/?campaignid=13271466382&adgroupid=123024099019&adid=524233276738&gclid=CjwKCAjwsKqoBhBPEiwALrrqiBVg8_cXlHxasDYaNb34q0jLxLD4-bin5l3oss6e-U53rvOVWKedpBoCXacQAvD_BwE

Therefore, we can’t include a comparative study with a testing indicators framework. This is our future research, and the paper with the empirical part is under preparation now.

The English is checked by a native speaker.

Sincerely yours

 

Corresponding author

 

Dalia Streimikiene

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf