The Use of Financial Tools in Small-Scale Irrigated Crops to Assess Socioeconomic Sustainability: A Case Study in Tocantins-Araguaia Basin, Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Minor revision, Manuscript need some improvements

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red in the re-submitted file.

Regarding your questions, please see as follows:

- Initially, the text was completely revised for your analysis, given the valuable contributions of all reviewers.

- The Abstract was rewritten so that the main factors and sub-main factors can be clear.

- Regarding the irrigation systems analyzed in the study, only the two systems (drip and furrow) were compared because they are the main systems in the study area (Settlement). In the Discussion section, we revised the text so that we could include the importance of evaluating other irrigation systems, whether conventional in Brazil and Emerging Markets – such as sprinkler and central pivot, or others.

- The methodology was also improved so that the main factors and sub-main factors are clear.

- Regarding statistical analyzes of economic indicators (Tables 3 to 6), deterministic economic indicators, such as Net Present Value and Modified Internal Rate of Return, are not usual of carrying out statistical analyzes on them. Only probabilistic ones, as demonstrated in Table 6 – Monte Carlo simulation. But we understand your observation and in the Discussion section we reviewed the text to mention this.

Thanks for your contributions. Your suggestions were valuable for our paper and your points helped to improve it.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. could a financial tool improve the socioeconomic sustainability ? or using the financial tool to assess the socioeconomic sustainability, does it right?  in title.

2. introduction: all the paragraphs need to be conclude based on their content,  with three paragraphs enough.

3. figure 4 needs to be improved, especially the x, y axis.

4. figure 5, the revised comments as figure 4.

5. too many short paragraphs in discussion, start with a reference not very professional; such as from line 359 to 379, so on.

6. the content of line 428-440, also your conclusion? 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

the whole content of this research needs improve for a better Systematization and logicality.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red in the re-submitted file.

Regarding your questions, please see as follows:

1. could a financial tool improve the socioeconomic sustainability ? or using the financial tool to assess the socioeconomic sustainability, does it right?  In title.

Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with your comment, and we have changed the title to: “Use of financial tools in small-scale irrigated crops to assess socioeconomic sustainability: a case study in Tocantins-Araguaia basin, Brazil”

2. introduction: all the paragraphs need to be conclude based on their content, with three paragraphs enough.

We agree with your point and the final part of the Introduction was completely revised.

3. figure 4 needs to be improved, especially the x, y axis.

Adjusted.

4. figure 5, the revised comments as figure 4.

Adjusted.

5. too many short paragraphs in discussion, start with a reference not very professional; such as from line 359 to 379, so on.

Adjusted.

6. the content of line 428-440, also your conclusion?

We agree with your point and the Conclusion is now more concise to present only the key information.

Thanks for your contributions. Your suggestions were valuable for our paper and your points helped to improve it.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is based on the financial planning of small-scale irrigated crops for an agricultural project in the Bom Successo/Santa Cruz settlement in the Tocantins-Araguaia Hydrographic Basin in the Central-West Region of Brazil. I suggest making corrections from the following aspects:

1. The introduction is informative, but it could be more concise. Consider summarizing some of the background information to make the introduction more focused.

2. Provide more details on the methodology of data collection. How were interviews conducted? What were the questions asked in the online questionnaires? Clarity in this section is crucial for understanding the reliability of the gathered data.

3. The risk analysis section is extensive and detailed. However, it might be helpful to include a brief summary or conclusion for each risk assessment technique (sensitivity analysis, tornado plot, Monte Carlo simulation) to highlight key findings.

4. Ensure consistency in language and style throughout the document. Maintain a formal and objective tone suitable for an academic or research paper.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red in the re-submitted file.

Regarding your questions, please see as follows:

The study is based on the financial planning of small-scale irrigated crops for an agricultural project in the Bom Successo/Santa Cruz settlement in the Tocantins-Araguaia Hydrographic Basin in the Central-West Region of Brazil. I suggest making corrections from the following aspects:

1. The introduction is informative, but it could be more concise. Consider summarizing some of the background information to make the introduction more focused.

We agree with your point and the Introduction was completely revised to be more concise and focused.

2. Provide more details on the methodology of data collection. How were interviews conducted? What were the questions asked in the online questionnaires? Clarity in this section is crucial for understanding the reliability of the gathered data.

We agree with your comment and this section was completely revised in order to present more details about the data collection (interviews/queries).

3. The risk analysis section is extensive and detailed. However, it might be helpful to include a brief summary or conclusion for each risk assessment technique (sensitivity analysis, tornado plot, Monte Carlo simulation) to highlight key findings.

We agree with your point and the Results section was completely revised in order to improve the findings of each risk assessment technique.

4. Ensure consistency in language and style throughout the document. Maintain a formal and objective tone suitable for an academic or research paper.

We agree with your point and the manuscript was completely revised.

Thanks for your contributions. Your suggestions were valuable for our paper and your points helped to improve it.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The results of this paper are of great values in promoting the socio-economic sustainability of agricultural production systems, and I have some amendments:

1. It is suggested to further summarize the key scientific issues and research objectives of this paper.

2. Please briefly introduce the contents of the survey.

3. Please further discuss the relationship between irrigation methods and market fluctuations, which is very interesting.

4. During the discussion, the sources of risk in different management styles can be analyzed.

5. Can you add what implications the study results have for sustainable agricultural management?

6. Please compress the conclusion of the article and present the key information.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red in the re-submitted file.

Regarding your questions, please see as follows:

 

The results of this paper are of great values in promoting the socio-economic sustainability of agricultural production systems, and I have some amendments:

1. It is suggested to further summarize the key scientific issues and research objectives of this paper.

We agree with your point and the text was completely revised.

2. Please briefly introduce the contents of the survey.

We agree with your point and the Introduction was completely revised to briefly introduce the contents of the survey.

3. Please further discuss the relationship between irrigation methods and market fluctuations, which is very interesting.

We agree with your comment and the Discussion was completely revised to point this out, which we also consider very interesting.

4. During the discussion, the sources of risk in different management styles can be analyzed.

We agree with your point and the Discussion section was completely revised.

5. Can you add what implications the study results have for sustainable agricultural management?

We agree with your point and the Discussion was completely revised to add some implications in terms of sustainable agriculture.

6. Please compress the conclusion of the article and present the key information.

We agree with your point and the Conclusion is now more concise to present only the key information.

Thanks for your contributions. Your suggestions were valuable for our paper and your points helped to improve it.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors conducted interesting and rare research in the literature. They used the correct financial analysis tools. Based on the analysis, they formulated correct and valuable conclusions. The work is innovative because it concerns the comparison of the profitability of agricultural production using different irrigation systems. Some comments may be made regarding the number of surveys conducted (only 25). It seems that this number is insufficient to verify the data obtained by the authors from the literature. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red in the re-submitted file.

Regarding your questions, please see as follows:

 

The authors conducted interesting and rare research in the literature. They used the correct financial analysis tools. Based on the analysis, they formulated correct and valuable conclusions. The work is innovative because it concerns the comparison of the profitability of agricultural production using different irrigation systems. Some comments may be made regarding the number of surveys conducted (only 25). It seems that this number is insufficient to verify the data obtained by the authors from the literature.

We agree with your point and the Methodology was revised to comment about this. Being more specific, we added this text:

“Although it is not a relatively large sample of producers who were able to respond to the interviews/queries, they were selected because they are representative in terms of quantity and quality of technical and financial information, and also for reasons of education and willingness to talk. The interviews were based on three axes of questions: (i) productive aspects; (ii) technical aspects about irrigation, and (iii) financial aspects of production and irrigation.”

Thanks for your contributions. Your suggestions were valuable for our paper and your points helped to improve it.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.line 392,398, the sentences started by [28][14], replaced by Souza et al [28] and Silva et al [14], please considering.

2. the information of some references were incomplete, such as 18, 26,  32 .

3.  recheck all the sentences in the paper for a better reading.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review the manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below, in red:

1.line 392,398, the sentences started by [28][14], replaced by Souza et al [28] and Silva et al [14], please considering.

We agree and now it is adjusted.

2. the information of some references were incomplete, such as 18, 26,  32 .

Thanks. Adjusted. The reference 32 has no DOI. Please see attached.

3.  recheck all the sentences in the paper for a better reading.

We agree and the manuscript was completely revised again for your analysis. All the changes are in red.

Thanks for your contributions.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf