Investigating Farmers’ Intentions to Reduce Water Waste through Water-Smart Farming Technologies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Manuscript titled “Modeling Farmers’ Intentions to Reduce Water Waste through Water-smart Farming Technologies” studies five hypothesis: which implies the relations between factors that influence the human behaviour and intention to minimize water waste in Algeria.

Using answers from a self-administered paper questionnaire, applied to 212 farmers in five agricultural towns in northern Algeria organized with five-point Likert scale, the authors apply an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and several techniques (correlation matrix, Cronbach’s alpha, mean scores and standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis test) to demonstrate the relations between above mentioned factors.

All the sections’ content is well described and focused on the objective of the research.

The article has a literature review that helps explain the basis of the research and results of the study.

The Discussions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and they address to the hypothesis proposed. The large number of proposed references are appropriate to the manuscript objective and helps to the demonstration of results and conclusions.

The research set the bases for future research and remains that the results to be further explored.

Yet some issues must be clarified:

Minor Improvements:

1.      The number of Keywords is too high, there are usually 5 keywords.

 

Major Improvements:

2.      The value of variation in intention (54.6%) should be discussed as it represents (with the extension of TPB a little more than 50%, which reflect on the number and formulation of the hypothesis.

3.      In 2.3.3 the last phrases of the paragraph (rows 247-251: “However, some research has found that PBC may not be a significant antecedent for water conservation intentions [36,45,52]. Similarly, Chengqin et al. [49] found that intentions to reduce food waste are not influenced by PBC, and Pino et al. [9] demonstrated that PBC does not predict farmers’ intentions to adopt measures to reduce water waste”) rises a question mark, why the PBC is implicated in the 3^rd hypothesis and utilized in the study.

4.      As the research evaluates factors that influence the water waste through water-smart farming technologies, I don't think there is any modelling in the method, so the title can be changed accordingly.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much, we appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions which allowed us to improve the quality of the manuscript, its readability, as well as its potential contribution to the literature. In the manuscript, all changes are highlighted in green color.

Recommendation	Response
The number of Keywords is too high, there are usually 5 keywords	Among the requirements of the Sustainability Journal: "List three to ten pertinent keywords specific to the article yet reasonably common within the subject discipline." After checking the keywords, we deleted 3 of them: circular economy; smart agriculture; waste-related knowledge
The value of variation in intention (54.6%) should be discussed as it represents (with the extension of TPB a little more than 50%, which reflect on the number and formulation of the hypothesis.	Based on your valuable comment, we have added the following paragraph: Moreover, additional constructs, namely knowledge (β = 0.220) and perceived usefulness (β = 0.208), constituted the second and third strongest predictors of farmers' intentions, respectively, after attitudes. Nevertheless, these results indicate that about 45% of the variance in farmers' intentions is explained by other factors not included in our model. In fact, human behavior is influenced by many internal and external factors, in addition to contextual and situational factors, which makes its prediction difficult and complex. Accordingly, it may be useful to extend the TPB model with additional constructs from other psychological theories or models. (See p. 11, lines 352-359)
In 2.3.3 the last phrases of the paragraph (rows 247-251: “However, some research has found that PBC may not be a significant antecedent for water conservation intentions [36,45,52]. Similarly, Chengqin et al. [49] found that intentions to reduce food waste are not influenced by PBC, and Pino et al. [9] demonstrated that PBC does not predict farmers’ intentions to adopt measures to reduce water waste”) rises a question mark, why the PBC is implicated in the 3rd hypothesis and utilized in the study.	From our point of view, the contradiction in the effect of PBC on intentions to reduce waste is logical for several reasons, including that the difficulties that individuals may face in reducing waste may differ according to countries, contexts, and settings. It may also vary according to the demographic characteristics of the respondents (such as educational level and experience). On this basis, we examined the effect of this structure in our study, and we found that PBC is one of the factors affecting farmers’ intentions.
As the research evaluates factors that influence the water waste through water-smart farming technologies, I don't think there is any modelling in the method, so the title can be changed accordingly	The title of the manuscript has been changed as follows: Investigating Farmers’ Intentions to Reduce Water Waste through Water-smart Farming Technologies

 

Thank you again for your valuable comments and support!

Kindest regards,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

 

I have attached my comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language needs to be improved.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much, we appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions which allowed us to improve the quality of the manuscript, its readability, as well as its potential contribution to the literature. In the manuscript, all changes are highlighted in green color.

Recommendation	Response
The abstract is well written and clear to follow. However, the author should avoid using “there is a lack of empirical research” to establish the gap or rationale for the research because that is not entirely true. There are several relevant works that has been done on the subject but maybe not adequately explored especially in Algeria. Please revisit.	We have rephrased it, as you suggested, as follows: Digital technologies provide effective solutions to reduce resource waste; therefore, exploring farmers' willingness to implement water-smart farming technologies to reduce waste, especially in developing countries, requires further analysis. (See p. 1, Abstract.)
Introduction section: When referring to “literature” which is a broad term, you may want to cite 2 or 3 studies in the literature that outlined the highest priority of resource management	We have included 3 citations as you suggested. (See p. 1, lines 40-43)
Introduction section: How does reducing water use or consumption a wastewater reduction strategy? I argue that if you use water correctly, you don’t have to reduce the usage in order to achieve wastewater reduction	We completely agree with your argue, correct use of water by farmers does not pose the problem of minimizing water wastage. However, studies indicate that people (including farmers) continue to waste water for several reasons, such as not knowing the correct use of water. We believe this requires interventions that include educating people on how to reduce waste for the correct and effective use of water.
I have no issue with the literature review except that it is too comprehensive and needs to be better synthesized, grammatically proofread and provide the lessons from the literature without any verbosity	Thank you for this valuable comment. We made some changes (corrected and deleted some phrases), and we also conducted a comprehensive grammatical proofread.
Please revisit the first sentence in the result section and avoid using “them”. The author should revisit how the sentences are made up in the discussion of respondents’ demographics. It does not read well at all and not standard.	We rephrase this sentence as follows: all respondents were male (100%). (See p. 8, line 362)
Page 9 of 19 (line 347-357), what does the findings suggest? What does it mean in relation to the objective of the study?	I think you mean “Page 9 of 19 (line 374-385)”. We have added findings suggestions, as you suggested. (See p. 9, lines 379-394)
The results from the analysis were well presented however, a few parts of the result discussion sentences do not read well. This could be a language problem and the authors must revisit. For example, “Before proceeding with testing the hypotheses, it is important to verify that there is no problem of multicollinearity [50,73]. To do this, VIF and Tolerance are commonly used statistical tests[68,74].” Line 404 to 406, Page 10. Please reword the statements	We have reword this statement as follows: Conducting hierarchical multiple regression analysis requires ensuring that “there is no multicollinearity issue” in the data [50,73]. Therefore, VIF and tolerance tests can be used to check this issue [68,74]. (See p. 10, lines 412-414)
Authors should revisit grammar in the study as you cannot refer to the authors as “they”. As a suggestion, you can choose to start the sentence by saying “In this study, the expanded version of TPB was proposed…..”	We rephrase this sentence as follows: In this study, the authors aim to understand the factors that motivate farmers to reduce water waste through the use of water-efficient farming technologies in Algeria. To do so, the expanded version of TPB was proposed, which includes two additional constructs: perceived usefulness and water waste reduction-related knowledge. (See p. 12, lines 467-468)
Most of the literature citations under the discussion section could well fit into backing up the findings of study under the results section. The discussion section could expand on the key context of the results of the study and how significant the findings help in answering the research questions. This seems well written but not streamlined properly. Please avoid making the discussion section appear like another literature background	We expanded the discussion section to include the study’ objectives. (See pp. 12-13, discussion section)
The conclusion should not have another citation as this is now supposed to present the key findings of the study. While I understand that the authors may wish to give one sentence introduction to start off, this can be formed using the main goal of the study and followed by what was done, and how the work was carried out. The first 5 lines are not necessary except you can summarise it to be one sentence. Authors should revisit. This must be very brief. Aside that, the rest of the conclusion was well written, which is similar to the abstract.	We deleted the citation in the conclusion, summarized the first 5 lines in one sentence, and then addressed the main objective of the study as follows: Many countries suffer from water waste in farming, so it has become necessary to adopt a more sustainable approach to farming. Therefore, the main objective of this investigation is to examine farmers’ intentions to minimize waste through the use of smart farming technologies. (See p. 16, lines 672-675)

 

Thank you again for your valuable comments and support!

Kindest regards,

The authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. What is the main question addressed by the research?
Reviewer's comment: It is not known exactly what farmers understand about using modern agricultural production techniques that can reduce water waste in their crops and the manuscript presents research focused on discovering how farmers deal with this issue and whether they use the process of water-smart farming to reduce water waste in agricultural production.

2. What parts do you consider original or relevant to the field? What specific gap in the field does the article address?
Reviewer's comment: The specific gap that the manuscript brings to scientific knowledge is the perception of farmers in a region under study about water-smart farming, serving as a basis for decision-making in the process of including more agricultural producers in the subject and improving agricultural production without wasting water.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared to other material publications?
Reviewer's comment: What it adds is the visibility of a group of farmers' knowledge of modern production processes and what gaps and difficulties can be found and resolved for a water resources manager to apply in an attempt to increase water availability in the region.

4. What specific improvements should authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?
Reviewer's comment: As a specific improvement to the methodology, it would be the use of graphs that better represent the results found so that the reader can, in a way, more easily find the relationship between the results found and the proposal of the manuscript.

5. Please describe how the conclusions are or are not consistent with the evidence and arguments presented. Please also indicate if all main questions posed were addressed and by which specific experiments.
Reviewer's comment: The conclusions are consistent with what was proposed by the authors in the manuscript.

6. Are the references appropriate?

Reviewer's comment:  The references used to highlight what has already been learned on the subject present a rate of recently excellent material (69% of the last 5 years), with 29% of the materials researched between 2004 and 2020, which denotes a concern on the part of the authors to research in recent articles to ensure your material is innovative and up-to-date.

 

However, 16% of the recent material (last 5 years) presented in the bibliographic review of the manuscript is all material produced by the group that presents the manuscript for publication, which denotes self-plagiarism, a practice not accepted in scientific circles. This practice is accepted when no group in the world carries out research in the area and subject covered in this manuscript. Even removing the count from this number of publications, the rate of recently researched material is 54%.

 

Below is the list of researched articles that contain 1 or more authors belonging to the list of authors who sent the manuscript for review.

 

17. Raza, A.; Tong, G.; Erokhin, V.; Bobryshev, A.; Chaykovskaya, L.; Malinovskaya, N. Sustaining performance of wheat–rice farms in Pakistan: The effects of financial literacy and financial inclusion. Sustainability 2023, 15, 7045. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097045.

 

18. Raza, A.; Tong, G.; Sikandar, F.; Erokhin, V.; Tong, Z. Financial literacy and credit accessibility of rice farmers in Pakistan: Analysis for Central Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions. Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 2963. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15042963.

 

19. Mouloudj, K.; Bouarar, A.C.; Mouloudj, S. Extension of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to predict farmers’ intention to save energy. In AIP Conference Proceedings; AIP Publishing LLC: College Park, MD, USA, 2023; Volume 2683, p. 020002. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0125022.

 

37. Erokhin, V.; Gao, T.; Ivolga, A. Structural variations in the composition of land funds at regional scales across Russia. Land 2020, 9(6), 201. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9060201.

 

38. Esaulko, A.; Sitnikov, V.; Pismennaya, E.; Vlasova, O.; Golosnoi, E.; Ozheredova, A.; Ivolga, A.; Erokhin, V. (2023). Productivity of winter wheat cultivated by direct seeding: Measuring the effect of hydrothermal coefficient in the arid zone of Central Fore-Caucasus. Agriculture 2023, 13(1), 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13010055.

 

39. Gao, T.; Ivolga, A.; Erokhin, V. Sustainable rural development in Northern China: Caught in a vice between poverty, urban attractions, and migration. Sustainability 2018, 10(5), 1467. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051467.

 

40. Gao, T.; Erokhin, V.; Arskiy, A. Dynamic optimization of fuel and logistics costs as a tool in pursuing economic sustainability of a farm. Sustainability 2019, 11(19), 5463. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195463.

 

50. Mouloudj, K.; Njoku, A.; Asanza, D.M.; Bouarar, A.C.; Evans, M.A.; Mouloudj, S.; Bouarar, A. Modeling predictors of medication waste reduction intention in Algeria: Extending the theory of planned behavior. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 6584. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20166584.

 

68. Njoku, A.; Mouloudj, K.; Bouarar, A.C.; Evans, M.A.; Asanza, D.M.; Mouloudj, S.; Bouarar, A. Intentions to create green start-ups for collection of unwanted drugs: An empirical study. Sustainability 2024, 16, 2797. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072797. 

 

73. Mouloudj, K.; Bouarar, A.C. Investigating predictors of medical students’ intentions to engagement in volunteering during the health crisis. Afr. J. Econ. Manag. Stud. 2023, 14, 205-222. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJEMS-08-2022-0315.

 

74. Bouarar, A.C.; Mouloudj, S.; Umar, T.P.; Mouloudj, K. Antecedents of physicians' intentions to engage in digital volunteering work: An extended technology acceptance model (TAM) approach. J. Integr. Care 2023, 31, 285-299. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICA-857 81703-2023-0017.

 

78. Sikandar, F.; Erokhin, V.; Shu, W.H.; Rehman, S.; Ivolga, A. The impact of foreign capital inflows on agriculture development and poverty reduction: Panel data analysis for developing countries. Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3242. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063242.

 

79. Sikandar, F.; Erokhin, V.; Xin, L.; Sidorova, M.; Ivolga, A.; Bobryshev, A. Sustainable agriculture and rural poverty eradication in Pakistan: The role of foreign aid and government policies. Sustainability 2022, 14(22), 14751. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142214751.

 

Doing a quick review on the journal website ScienceDirect, a search for the keyword "Smart Water Management" returned 244 articles published in the last 5 years. If we use the combined keywords "smart water management" + "Africa" it returned 36 articles in the last 5 years of publication.

 

I believe that authors should let the requirements be fundamental and unique in the scientific environment, otherwise, to prove the scientific rigor applied in the research and ensure that other works are compared to strengthen the proposal presented in this manuscript, the list of obligations of the authors themselves should be reduced and restrictions on other works must be increased, otherwise self-plagiarism will be characterized in the document presented.

 

Doing a quick review on Google Scholar, a search for the combined keywords "smart water management" + "Africa" returned 835 articles published in the last 5 years. If we expand the search for the keyword "intelligent water management" it returns 3630 articles published in the last 5 years. In this way, it is demonstrated that several researchers are publishing on the subject addressed and need to be confronted at some point in the research with what is proposed.

 

For the manuscript to be accepted, it is imperative to modify and update the bibliographic review to include more research that not only comes from within the same research group as the authors of the manuscript, as science is not done behind closed doors with the thoughts of those who are there, there is a need to seek contradiction in academia to prove that what was developed is the best solution. This is what will definitively prove the originality of being accepted for publication in the Sustainability Journal.

 

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures and quality of the data.

Reviewer's comment:   Some other issues about the writing and layout of the submitted manuscript must also be evaluated.

 

Table 1. Constructs and declarations - organize so that the entire table is on a single page

 

Table 3. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach's Alphas and correlation matrix - arrange so that the entire table is on a single page

 

Table 4. Hierarchical regression analysis results - organize so that the entire table is on a single page

 

There were no images of pie charts, bars or other models that make it easier to read the results found more quickly. The reader has to carefully read the entire text to extract the information, especially statistical information.

 

I believe that the manuscript needs to be adjusted and improved with the introduction and comparison with what was developed by the authors and what has already been presented by the scientific community in order to show the robustness of what was proposed, not only comparing it with work developed by the authors themselves, in addition to adjusting tables and inserting graphs that better explain the statistical results.

I recommend a major revision of the submitted manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Word water-conserving on line 235 would be water conserving without the dash.

"distributed to to a convenience" on line 307 is "distributed to a convenience"

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for equipping us with valuable recommendations which allowed us to improve the initial version of the manuscript. The following revisions were made:

Recommendation	Response
As a specific improvement to the methodology, it would be the use of graphs that better represent the results found so that the reader can, in a way, more easily find the relationship between the results found and the proposal of the manuscript.	Thank you very much for this comment. To more easily find the relationship between the results found (as you suggested), we include the hierarchical regression results of the proposed expanded model in Figure 1. (See p. 11, fig.1)
16% of the recent material (last 5 years) presented in the bibliographic review of the manuscript is all material produced by the group that presents the manuscript for publication, which denotes self-plagiarism, a practice not accepted in scientific circles. This practice is accepted when no group in the world carries out research in the area and subject covered in this manuscript.   Doing a quick review on the journal website ScienceDirect, a search for the keyword "Smart Water Management" returned 244 articles published in the last 5 years. If we use the combined keywords "smart water management" + "Africa" it returned 36 articles in the last 5 years of publication.   I believe that authors should let the requirements be fundamental and unique in the scientific environment, otherwise, to prove the scientific rigor applied in the research and ensure that other works are compared to strengthen the proposal presented in this manuscript, the list of obligations of the authors themselves should be reduced and restrictions on other works must be increased, otherwise self-plagiarism will be characterized in the document presented.   Doing a quick review on Google Scholar, a search for the combined keywords "smart water management" + "Africa" returned 835 articles published in the last 5 years. If we expand the search for the keyword "intelligent water management" it returns 3630 articles published in the last 5 years. In this way, it is demonstrated that several researchers are publishing on the subject addressed and need to be confronted at some point in the research with what is proposed.   For the manuscript to be accepted, it is imperative to modify and update the bibliographic review to include more research that not only comes from within the same research group as the authors of the manuscript, as science is not done behind closed doors with the thoughts of those who are there, there is a need to seek contradiction in academia to prove that what was developed is the best solution. This is what will definitively prove the originality of being accepted for publication in the Sustainability Journal.	As you suggested, to reduce self-citation we replaced the authors' references with other references (see the updated list of references, changes in green)
Table 1. Constructs and declarations - organize so that the entire table is on a single page	We did it as you suggested. (See p. 9).
Table 3. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach's Alphas and correlation matrix - arrange so that the entire table is on a single page	We did it as you suggested. (See p. 10).
Table 4. Hierarchical regression analysis results - organize so that the entire table is on a single page	We did it as you suggested. (See p. 11).
There were no images of pie charts, bars or other models that make it easier to read the results found more quickly. The reader has to carefully read the entire text to extract the information, especially statistical information.	We have added Figure 1 (Hierarchical multiple regression results for the extended TPB model) to simplify understanding the study' results. (See p. 11).
Word water-conserving on line 235 would be water conserving without the dash.	We have corrected that as you suggested. (See p. 5, line 235)
"distributed to to a convenience" on line 307 is "distributed to a convenience"	Thank you very much, this typo has been corrected. (See p. 4, line 307)

 

All changes to the earlier version of the manuscript are now highlighted in green color in the text. Thank you again for your valuable comments and support!

Kindest regards,

The authors

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors replied to all the suggestions with the modification of manuscript and explanations of content.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors made the necessary modifications for the manuscript to be accepted for publication.