Challenges Facing Artificial Intelligence Adoption during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Investigation into the Agriculture and Agri-Food Supply Chain in India
, Kamalakanta Muduli 2,*, Rakesh Raut 3,*, Balkrishna Eknath Narkhede 4, Himanshu Shee 5 and Sujoy Kumar Jana 6
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Name of the Paper: Challenges facing Artificial Intelligence Adoption during COVID-19 Pandemic: An investigation into the agriculture and agri-food supply chain in India
The paper attempts to investigate the challenges of adopting AI in Indian farming. The research is based on 32 Experts for ISM modeling and MICMAC. The data from 543 farmers were analyzed to gauge the awareness. Later on SWARA is also employed to priorities the “challenging parameters (CPs)” and “Associated major-parameters (APs)”.
General Observation:
1) There are several typos and grammatical error that needs careful editing for instance: socio-demographic should be sociodemographic, “management oriented modelling,” should be “management-oriented modelling,”, similarly relative-relevance, “V, A X, and O” as shown in Table 4 comma is missing, etc.
2) Please refer to the abstract: “Authors need to refine abstract as “The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has witnessed a significant loss for farmers in India due to restrictions on movement and limited social interactions” is not correct as of the day and needs modification.
3) Please refer to the abstract: “Response time and accuracy level; lack of,….were identified as relevant factors”. “relevant” doesn’t signify the true meaning.
4) Please refer to section “2.3. AI during the pandemic COVID-19” which looks misfit and unnecessarily increases the references as well. This section has been dealt with by many researchers in the recent past, and hence may be omitted or curtailed.
5) Please refer to line 290 "As the farming is still at a nascent stage". Indian farming is globally leading in several crops produced.
6) Please refer to “The purpose of the questionnaire was to gather comprehensive socio-demographic data and awareness of farmers about the use as well as of usefulness of AI during the pandemic COVID-19.” There is no information on the pilot study, sample size, accuracy and validity check…etc.
7) Please refer to lines 345-346: “The awareness questionnaire included the knowledge levels and the benefits of using AI in agriculture and agri-food supply chain in addition to its context of COVID-19. In referring to “Appendix 1: Questionnaire on the farmers’ socio-demographics and awareness”. Two questions were asked “Knowledge of the importance, benefits .......agri-food supply chain and "Do you think the application of AI in agriculture or agri-food supply chain will be beneficial? ”Are they different?
8) Please refer to line 365: “Further, the interrelations among these challenging parameters in the implementation of AI were measured, and an ISM model was developed. ” The measurement process is not described.
9) Please refer to lines 404-405: “As shown in Table 3, the various significant “challenging parameters (CPs)” associated with the implementation of AI in India’s agri-food supply chain during this COVID-19 outbreak were discovered. “Discovery process is not mentioned clearly.
10) Please refer to line 410: “On the basis of similar contextual-relationships, the development of SSIM for all the eight challenging parameters from Table 3”, Table has 12 CPs.
11) Please refer to line 410: “On the basis of similar contextual-relationships” is unclear.
12) Please refer to line 415: “final reachability-matrix with transitivity-relation (FR-M)” was also created. “Transitivity” is not explained.
13) Please refer to Line 444 Figure 2. ISM final-model. How Farmer's unwillingness will lead to shortage of infrastructures is unclear.
14) Please refer to line 469:"These drivers are characterized as being “very-influent” and “dependent”." the dependent group is already classified as Group II.
15) Please refer to line 503:” Expert assistance was used to determine the relative-relevance of “average-values (sj)”. Who were the experts? Were they the same group 32 or others needs to be clarified?
16) Please refer to line 510: Step A, how Sj is derived is unclear. Sample calculation may be included.
17) The following recent papers from MDPI on ISM, MICMAC and Food Supply chain may be included:
a) Accomplishing Sustainability in Manufacturing System for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) through Lean Implementation
b) Exploring the lean implementation barriers in small and medium-sized enterprises using interpretive structure modeling and interpretive ranking process
c) The ISM Method to Analyze the Relationship between Blockchain Adoption Criteria in University: An Indonesian Case
d) Leveraging the Dynamics of Food Supply Chains towards Avenues of Sustainability
e) Assessment of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Interventions towards the Avenues of Sustainable Production–Consumption
Author Response
Revision note is attached
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please find below my review remarks -
- Why the scope is limited to India? In terms of AI adoption in the Introduction, it can be generic in nature.
- Please check the section formatting to remove the point at the start
- Covid and its implication can be mitigated through AI but isn't it the case that AI can help irrespective of covid as well?
- Please itemize the objectives for readability
- Introduction has India specific discussion and SOTA starts with generic impact and the need for precision agriculture
- Please bring in the differentiating factor or the reasoning why India lacks the adoption of technologies
- Please create a subsection in SOTA for the Indian agriculture use-case. As a reader, I am getting lost as sometimes you talk about the world, pandemic, or technologies adaptation worldwide. Please restructure to bring clarity.
- What were the issues and challenges in gathering Questionnaires from farmers, considering illiteracy etc?
- Please explain Table 1 in more details
- Why more than 95% of farmer prefer traditional farming?
- Figure 1 needs to be redrawn due to size and font
- Same with Figure 2, please keep same font
- Is there any reference or SOTA for the ISM model?
- Figure 3 is blurred, please redraw
- Again in conclusion, there is a discussion on technologies irrespective of its adoption in India or world wide.
Overall, I would propose to restructure sections and bring up the conclusion or mitigation techniques that can help farmers to adopt the advance solutions.
Author Response
Revision note is attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Suggested previous comments have been addressed.
a) Please change "2.3.2. In the Indian context may be changed to “AI in the Indian context"
b) Please refer to line no.366: "advancementsas" should be "advancements as"
c) Please refer to Table 2. Socio-demographic data and awareness of farmers (n= 543). “57and more” may be “57 and more”
d) Please refer to lines no.485 to 489: there is an equation number in the numeral i.e. (1) to (3) as well as in roman (i) to (iii) which is confusing and hence may be modified.
e) Please refer to line no.507: “AI adoptionis perceived tohave” may be corrected for spacing.
f) Careful editing is still required to remove the typos.
Author Response
Responses to comments:
Reviewer#1:
Comment(s): Suggested previous comments have been addressed.
Response(s): Thank you for giving your valuable time to review the revised article. Based on the suggestions provided, considerable modifications have been made in the present revised version.
Comment(s): Please change "2.3.2. In the Indian context may be changed to “AI in the Indian context".
Response(s): The section has been change to I in the Indian context. For instance:
2.3.2 AI in the Indian context
The AI applications need to be more robust in agriculture for exploring its enormous-scope [83-84]. The ……..
Comment(s): Please refer to line no.366: "advancementsas" should be "advancements as".
Response(s): The line has been rectified As follows:
advancement which is supported by earlier studies [118-123].
Also due care was taken to avoid the typo errors in the entire manuscript.
Comment(s): Please refer to Table 2. Socio-demographic data and awareness of farmers (n= 543). “57and more” may be “57 and more”.
Response(s): The line has been rectified.
Comment(s): Please refer to lines no.485 to 489: there is an equation number in the numeral i.e. (1) to (3) as well as in roman (i) to (iii) which is confusing and hence may be modified.
Response(s): The equation numberings and citations in text have been modified and made uniform.
Comment(s): Please refer to line no.507: “AI adoptionis perceived tohave” may be corrected for spacing.
Response(s): The spacing has been provided.
- Discussion
India's agricultural sector sustainability is essential for continued economic growth. AI adoption is perceived to have a positive effect on the growth and development of agricultural practices in India.
Comment(s): Careful editing is still required to remove the typos.
Response(s): The typos and grammatical errors were careful edited.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
