Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I have completed a thorough review of your work entitled "Bibliometric Analysis of the State of Research on Agroecology Adoption and Methods for its Assessment" and I would like to provide you with feedback on its content.

First and foremost, I commend your effort in conducting a bibliometric analysis on an important topic within the field of agroecology. Your manuscript demonstrates a systematic attempt to contribute to the understanding of agroecology adoption and assessment methods. I appreciate the dedication you have shown in collating relevant references and attempting to bring a quantitative perspective to this area of study.

However, I regret to inform you that I am unable to recommend the publication of your manuscript in its current form. My assessment is based on the following concerns:

1. Novelty and Contribution: One of the key aspects that scholarly publications aim to fulfill is the delivery of novel insights to the field. Unfortunately, after careful evaluation, I find that your manuscript lacks the necessary level of novelty to make a significant contribution. Several review papers with comparable themes have been published recently addressing similar themes:

   1. 1. Shah, T. M., Tasawwar, S., & Otterpohl, R. (2021). Agroecology for Food and Water Security in Times of Climate Consciousness: A Bibliometric Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Literature Published from 1990 to 2020. Sustainability, 13(9), 5064.
   2. 2. Rocchi, L., Boggia, A., & Paolotti, L. (2020). Sustainable Agricultural Systems: A Bibliometrics Analysis of Ecological Modernization Approach. Sustainability, 12(22), 9635.
   3. 3. Liu, W., Wang, J., Li, C., Chen, B., & Sun, Y. (2019). Using Bibliometric Analysis to Understand the Recent Progress in Agroecosystem Services Research. Ecological Economics, 156, 293-305.
   4. 4. Sarkar, A., Wang, H., Rahman, A., Memon, W. H., & Qian, L. (2022). A Bibliometric Analysis of Sustainable Agriculture: Based on the Web of Science (WOS) Platform. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29(26), 38928-38949.

2. To move forward, I encourage you to reflect on how your work can differentiate itself and offer fresh perspectives or approaches that haven't been extensively explored.
   
   

3. Relevance and Focus: The brief overview of Africa's agricultural system (lines 225-259) appears to be not tangential to the central aims of your study. For your work to have a coherent and impactful narrative, all components of the manuscript should align with and directly contribute to addressing the research questions you've set forth. I recommend either integrating this section more closely with the main narrative or considering its removal if it doesn't directly serve your study's core objectives.
   
   

4. Scientific Precision: In line 39, you mention that "Given that agroecology is not an exact science"... However, I respectfully disagree with this statement. Agroecology has been increasingly recognized as a scientific discipline with rigorous methodologies and principles. I would suggest revisiting this statement to ensure it accurately reflects the current understanding of agroecology as a science (see the following articles).

   1. 1. Wezel, A., Bellon, S., Doré, T., Francis, C., Vallod, D., & David, C. (2009). Agroecology as a Science, a Movement and a Practice. A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 29, 503-515.
   2. 2. Altieri, M. A. (2018). Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. CRC Press.
   3.  
   4. While I acknowledge the effort and potential that your manuscript holds, these concerns must be addressed to enhance the quality and impact of your work. I encourage you to revise and resubmit your manuscript, considering the feedback provided. Please take this as an opportunity to refine your contribution and elevate its significance within the field.

Thank you for your understanding and I am confident that, with careful revisions, your work has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the scientific community.

Minor edits

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to review this article. The article is well written and I do not have many reservations and suggestions about the article.      

Mostly figures are unclear. Please change them with clear ones.

Literary support is not enough for a review article. Please extend to at least 80-100 citations.

Add some policy recommendations based on your bibliometric analysis.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, thank you for an interesting and important manuscript in the field of bibliometric analysis of research and evaluation in the field of agroecology. I would like to note the particular relevance and relevance of the subject of the journal, the structure of the study, the systematic nature of the course of the study, as well as a clear rationale for choosing a system of indicators for analysis. However, in order to make the material more valuable to readers, I suggest doing a deep correspondence in several places. I propose to revise the methodological part of the manuscript and supplement it with some research questions (hypotheses), the answers to which are confirmed by the results presented in the article. I also propose to consider the regulatory and legal aspects of the study and connect them with the possible implementation of the results at the practical level. It would also be interesting to apply quantitative methods for evaluating research in the field presented. In conclusion, it is necessary to note the scientific novelty and practical significance of the study. I hope my suggestions will improve the text.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

1. The idea of this article is good but no novelty shown/introduced. 

2. In section 2. Materials and Methods, authors not described about what is the methodology used and how materials used. 

3. Without proposed idea, simply graphs and analysis charts used. 

4. Those graphs are also not readable. 

5. There is no valid data sets are experimented or analyzed. 

6. The methodology for agroecological transition modeling is not sufficient. How the sustainability obtained in this work?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments for Authors:
General comments:

A bibliometric analysis of the literature on agroecological adoption was studied in this manuscript. The WoS is solely taken into consideration as a source of citation. Why not also take Scopus into consideration? In limitation, the author does highlight the causes for WoS, but does not explain why they did not take Scopus into account. Not clear

L45: production system. which….delete dot

L50, 59: ………….(pp. 335)? Why?

L71-73: is it necessary, delete please

L75: What is the reason of taking data from January 1990 to October 2022, why not before 1990s

L130: what about the publication number from 2000 to 2015

Figure 1 and 2: It is possible to say no. pf publication in 2011 exactly like figure 3 disply? No, therefore better to mention the data labels in the figure

L194: as Theron O is the most cited author, readers can feel to know his one of the most cited documents

L215-216: why SCP, MCP mentioned here?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Ι acknowledge your effort regarding the improvement of your work. I have no further comments. I wish you the best of luck. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Now the paper improved lot.