Training Sources and Preferences for Agricultural Producers and Professionals in Middle-North Mato Grosso, Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic chosen for your paper turns out to be interesting but, in my opinion, requires further effort to make it truly appealing. I think that the article needs a review process to make it more international, because, as it is written now, it appears “interesting” only for the studied geographical area or for other similar geographical areas. In particular, the abstract should present the methodology of analysis and the methodological part should be improved a little. In the paragraph entitled “Study Area and Methodological Approach” you refer only to the concept of “participatory rural appraisal” citing only one work present in the literature, but there are many others, so the references could be broadened. Moreover nothing is said about the multivariate regression model (which I find again after 2 subparagraphs). In my opinion, in this part you should be a little more schematic: first the description of the study area, then the analysis methodology starting from the approach followed, the survey carried out and how the information collected with the questionnaires was treated. Some additional information on the OLS model should be added to better describe what has been done with the multivariate regression model. Furthermore, the sample of farmers interviewed and analyzed must be better described: how the interviewees were selected, what percentage they represent of the reference universe, etc. Finally, I believe there are too many subparagraphs, just eliminating some titles should make the speech a little more fluid and it could help increase the quality of the work.

Here are some more specific suggestions:

ü  Please improve table 1, especially the methods column;

ü  Line 63: must be empty (each table and figure must be preceded and followed by an empty line):

ü  Please add some more agricultural data on the study area: farms, UAA, distribution of UAA;

ü  Figure 1: I recommend adding the figure of Brazil which shows where the area under study is located within the country and then, as done, more detail of the same area;

ü  Line 141-158: As described it seems that the interviewees were contacted at 3 different times. Is the questionnaire made up of 3 parts or were 3 different interviews conducted with the same respondent? Please specify better;

ü  Line 206: use the indication of thousands in numbers (always valid);

ü  Table 4: why is the surface expressed in acres if up to now the hectare has always been used?;

ü  Line 284: Our results are comparable with [44]…specify author name before [44], please check;

ü  Defining the OLS results better, it is not clear whether the same variables were used for both groups, whether some things were found to be non-significant, etc.;

ü  Specify some goodness test of the OLS model, nothing is said about it;

ü  Figure 3: I think color is better;

ü  Weak points of the work and future perspectives are missing.

Author Response

The topic chosen for your paper turns out to be interesting but, in my opinion, requires further effort to make it truly appealing. I think that the article needs a review process to make it more international, because, as it is written now, it appears “interesting” only for the studied geographical area or for other similar geographical areas. In particular, the abstract should present the methodology of analysis and the methodological part should be improved a little. In the paragraph entitled “Study Area and Methodological Approach” you refer only to the concept of “participatory rural appraisal” citing only one work present in the literature, but there are many others, so the references could be broadened. Moreover nothing is said about the multivariate regression model (which I find again after 2 subparagraphs). In my opinion, in this part you should be a little more schematic: first the description of the study area, then the analysis methodology starting from the approach followed, the survey carried out and how the information collected with the questionnaires was treated. Some additional information on the OLS model should be added to better describe what has been done with the multivariate regression model. Furthermore, the sample of farmers interviewed and analyzed must be better described: how the interviewees were selected, what percentage they represent of the reference universe, etc. Finally, I believe there are too many subparagraphs, just eliminating some titles should make the speech a little more fluid and it could help increase the quality of the work.

Here are some more specific suggestions:

Please improve table 1, especially the methods column;

We have widened this column and improved the formatting and clarity.

Line 63: must be empty (each table and figure must be preceded and followed by an empty line):

We have corrected this everywhere in the manuscript.

Please add some more agricultural data on the study area: farms, UAA, distribution of UAA;

We have added this as a second paragraph in the Introduction section.

Figure 1: I recommend adding the figure of Brazil which shows where the area under study is located within the country and then, as done, more detail of the same area;

We have made these corrections to Figure 1.

Line 141-158: As described it seems that the interviewees were contacted at 3 different times. Is the questionnaire made up of 3 parts or were 3 different interviews conducted with the same respondent? Please specify better;

We clarified this as 3 sections of the survey. The survey was not conducted in 3 temporal stages.

Line 206: use the indication of thousands in numbers (always valid);

MDPI formatting requirements for all their journals does not include a comma to include the thousands place for 4-digit number like “1000” but they do require this for numbers 5-digts or more. We have followed this formatting.

Table 4: why is the surface expressed in acres if up to now the hectare has always been used?;

Thank-you for correcting this typo. The survey was done in hectares so we have clarified this in Table 4.

Line 284: Our results are comparable with [44]…specify author name before [44], please check;

We have clarified this as Carbonera et al. 2020.

Defining the OLS results better, it is not clear whether the same variables were used for both groups, whether some things were found to be non-significant, etc.;

We have clarified better in the paragraph before Table 6 the variables that were not statistically significant in our OLS models for both producers and professionals. We have also clarified in the writing and in Table 6 variables that were similar but not exactly similar such as the managed area, soybeans only, and number of crops by adding and using a footnote. These 3 variables directly relate to what producers manage, while for professionals, this relates to what the producers they consult for manage.

Specify some goodness test of the OLS model, nothing is said about it;

We presented the goodness of fit (R²) for the OLS models in Table 6 for producers (R² = 0.4159) and professionals (R² = 0.4631).

Figure 3: I think color is better;

We have changed Figure 3 to color as suggested.

Weak points of the work and future perspectives are missing.

We have made the Conclusions section a separate section after the Discussion and we address weak points and future perspectives toward the end of this added Conclusions section.

Reviewer 2 Report

TITLE: TRAINING SOURCES AND PREFERENCES FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS AND PROFESSIONALS IN MIDDLE-NORTH MATO GROSSO, BRAZIL

GENERAL COMMENTS

The subject of this paper is very interesting and that should be of interest to Sustainability mdpi readers. I think the authors have tried to put their findings into context. However, a very crucial major comment needs to be solved or clarified before its possible publication.

MAJOR COMMENT

I do not see the questionnaire. Why? You must add it to the manuscript as an appendix.

You know that an unvalidated questionnaire is not reliable. How have you validated the questions in your questionnaire that I also have not seen?

 MINOR POINTS/COMMENTS

[lines 88-94] “Thus, the aim of this study was…” [Full stop and a new paragraph for each aim]

[line 119] Why such a large time range if it is the same questionnaire? Please, you should justify it in your manuscript.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND STYLE

English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.

OVERALL RECOMMENDATION

Reconsider after major revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

TITLE: TRAINING SOURCES AND PREFERENCES FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS AND PROFESSIONALS IN MIDDLE-NORTH MATO GROSSO, BRAZIL

GENERAL COMMENTS

The subject of this paper is very interesting and that should be of interest to Sustainability mdpi readers. I think the authors have tried to put their findings into context. However, a very crucial major comment needs to be solved or clarified before its possible publication.

MAJOR COMMENT

I do not see the questionnaire. Why? You must add it to the manuscript as an appendix.

We have included the English translations of the questionnaire to producers and questionnaire to professionals as a Supplemental Materials file which we have included with our revised manuscript. We chose not to include this as an Appendix due to the length of the questionnaires.

You know that an unvalidated questionnaire is not reliable. How have you validated the questions in your questionnaire that I also have not seen?

We validated the survey by pre-testing the survey with producers and professionals whose feedback improved the quality and efficiency of the survey. We used the “Needs Assessment Circuit” (NAC) which estimated time needed to answer survey questions and number of target responses for each town. The NAC was selected based on its use in previous studies of agricultural stakeholder involvement. 

MINOR POINTS/COMMENTS

[lines 88-94] “Thus, the aim of this study was…” [Full stop and a new paragraph for each aim]

We have created a separate paragraph for the objectives (aims) of our study and we clarified in the preceding paragraph the overall goal of the research.

[line 119] Why such a large time range if it is the same questionnaire? Please, you should justify it in your manuscript.

We have clarified this in the manuscript as around half an hour.

 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND STYLE

English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.

OVERALL RECOMMENDATION

Reconsider after major revision.

Reviewer 3 Report

There is clarity in the approach to the problem and the results that seek to protect agricultural producers through establishing successful agricultural training programs aimed at both agricultural producers and agricultural professionals in the middle north region of Mato Grosso state, Brazil. The method is straightforward and shows innovation in implementing and analyzing various training program components.

Author Response

There is clarity in the approach to the problem and the results that seek to protect agricultural producers through establishing successful agricultural training programs aimed at both agricultural producers and agricultural professionals in the middle north region of Mato Grosso state, Brazil. The method is straightforward and shows innovation in implementing and analyzing various training program components.

We thank you for your positive feedback on our manuscript!

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper entitled "Training Sources and Preferences for Agricultural Producers  and Professionals in Middle-North Mato Grosso, Brazil" is interesting and relevant to the journal. However, there are some flaws in presentation of the method and goals of the work. Furthermore, the manuscript needs another proofread for grammar and writing errors. Based on the current condition, I recommend moderate revision before publication. Below are my comments:

1. Need specifications of study area like latitude and longitude in section 2.1. Layout of Fig. 1 is also missing.

2. Methodology of work should be clear and elaborative. Better to represent it with flowchart diagram.

3. Conclusions section should put separately show that easily understandable. Write the limitations and future aspects of the study in conclusions section.

 

Author Response

The paper entitled "Training Sources and Preferences for Agricultural Producers  and Professionals in Middle-North Mato Grosso, Brazil" is interesting and relevant to the journal. However, there are some flaws in presentation of the method and goals of the work.

Furthermore, the manuscript needs another proofread for grammar and writing errors.

We have conducted another proofreading for English flow and grammar and writing errors by one of our co-authors who is a USA citizen and native English speaker.

Based on the current condition, I recommend moderate revision before publication. Below are my comments:

1. Need specifications of study area like latitude and longitude in section 2.1. Layout of Fig. 1 is also missing.

We have corrected the S and W for the latitude and longitude coordinates for the 4 cities. We have also corrected this in Figure 1 by adding latitude and longitude coordinates for both maps.

2. Methodology of work should be clear and elaborative. Better to represent it with flowchart diagram.

We have included a flowchart diagram of the methods we used as a new Figure 2.

3. Conclusions section should put separately show that easily understandable. Write the limitations and future aspects of the study in conclusions section.

We have made the Conclusions section a separate section as suggested after the Discussion and we address weak points and future perspectives toward the end of this added Conclusions section.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

All my suggestions have been justified by the authors and they have been incorporated in the final version.