Determinants of Household Food Security during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article identify the food security status in Indonesia during Covid-19 and also explored the determinants of household food security. The abstract is clearly described the all aspects of the manuscript. Introduction part is also well-written. Literature review section discussed the previous work on household food security, food security measurement methods and methodology. Methodology is sound and well described. sampling framework is clear and comprehensively implemented. The analytical framework is also appropriate. Results are presented in tangible fashion and well discussed. However, following points are to be considered for improving the manuscript.
1. In abstract, line 23, "are" is duplicate.
2. In Introduction line 31 - 35, cite the reference of FAO.
3. There are reference error at line numbers 146, 163, 209, 259, 265, 268, 341, 345, 359, 361 and 459,
4. Cite this paper https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185466.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please we already revised the manuscripts follows your comments. Thank you very much for your valuable correction and comments. Hope we can publish soon.
Best Regard
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesting and provides relevant information on food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. However, there are some components that need to be addressed:
1. The description of the statistical findings in the abstract implies causality, however what is written in the methods and results implies that this study presents secondary data analysis from a cross-sectional survey. Therefore causality cannot be implied. Please revise accordingly.
2. Please provide more updated data as to how food insecurity was impacted during COVID-19 (Lines 34-35), given that you are discussing 2020 numbers in future tense.
3. Are COVID-19 pandemic effects still impacting the food system to this level? Or, please clarify the timing of when you obtained these data to better contextualize the study.
4. Much of the text in the literature review is covered in the Introduction and/or should be in the Materials and Methods section. Please adapt accordingly.
5. Provide the time of data collection in the abstract and in the study objectives/aims.
6. Please specify when the face-to-face interviews took place. As is, there is no clear date/time provided (lines 165-167). Also, please present data from the face-to-face interviews or remove this description from the analysis. If you meant to report that surveys were administered in-person (rather than imply qualitative face-to-face interviews), then please edit to clarify this to the reader.
7. As the data are described, this sounds like a secondary data analysis from data collected at one time point (April-July 2020). If that is the case, then causality (and terms related to causality - such as "impact," "effect," etc. are inappropriate terms to use. Please change all causality-related terms to be reflective of this relationship.
8. Please thoughtfully review how you describe and categorize food insecurity measurement (lines 203-206). As is described, you have misidentified mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure, and severely food insecure.
9. The Results section should strictly present findings from your analysis. Please move any interpretation or contextualization of your findings with the wider literature to the Discussion section.
10. Please provide information regarding the total sample size, as well as n's for all answers in your demographics table.
11. Findings from categorical analyses should not only have variable names, but also categories clearly spelled out (Tables 4, 5 )
12. All logit analyses tables (Table 5) should present Odds Ratios instead of the coefficient. As is it is very difficult to read. Also, please replace commas with decimal points in the tables. Also, for all logit analyses, you should include the referent group.
13. Did you conduct any adjusted analyses (i.e., multinomial logistic regression)? If not, why? If you did, please provide a table depicting these data.
14. Please create a Discussion section per the Sustainability guidelines.
15. Please thoughtfully reread and edit your Conclusion section. Some of the recommendations have some typos that imply the wrong direction of association (519-524).
I think this study has merit. But you need to address the above considerations in order to have this proposal fit for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please we already revised the manuscripts follows your comments. Thank you very much for your valuable correction and comments. Hope we can publish soon.
Best Regard
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The concept of household FS jest well presented (indicators :direct, indirect, quality and security, access to food and more). This theoretical situation has been described in various countries in the region from two points: food security and food insecurity.
Impact of Covid-19 was characterized by households situation. To describe the real situation authors follow HFIAS scale following model which been used by many countries.
I consider the selection of provinces for the study to be representative (3 prowinces, 16 districts, 32 subdistricts and 64 willages and engaging 1341 respondents). It was done in 2020. The form contained 9 groups of questions. Responses to questions on a scale of 1 - 3 were clearly explained. Interpretation was carried out using the Binary Logit Regression Model (no literature reference).
The presentation of the results obtained was carefully carried out. Conclusions "farmer respondents tends to be food secure "or "level of income" are self explanatory. Others indicating additional influences: education, position, place of residence of respondents were also justified. The results of BLRM with 7 variables indicate a role/influence on security. The interpretation of the role of variables is correct and logical and confronted with literature sources.
Conclusions summarising the paper are fully justified.
Highlighted is the large number of references to Journals published in Asian and African countries.
Author Response
Please, this is the response of the 3rd reviewer (Attached). Apreciated and thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestion.
Best regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer 4,
Please, attach the response of the reviewer 4:
- Abstract should be well structured, please rewrite it and mention the novelty of work.
Response: Thank you very much. We already revised the structure of abstract and mention the novelty of the work (See line 24-26 page 1).
- In line 31-46, very few references have been added, kindly refer latest article for the same.
Response: Thank you very much. We already add the latest article in the manuscript (See line 38, 42 page 1-2).
- References are missing in methodology section (Line 119)
Response: Thank you. We already add the reference in methodology section (see line 119, page 3)
- Modify the caption of figure 1 (Explain briefly)
Response: Thank you. We already modify the captain of figure 1 (see page 3)
- In Conclusion part, mention major concluded points.
Response: Yes. We already make the point of the conclusion part. (See line 512-515 page 14)
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Now, quality of paper is enhanced therefore it should be accepted for publication.
