Farmers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Control Practices of Rodents in an Agricultural Area of Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting manuscript (MS) because of its very practical implications and the orderly fashion of the presentation. I think the authors have done a good job in formulating the main questions required. However, given that this is mostly social science research, I think the authors were a bit overly ambitious with the statistical analyses since the majority of the results can be interpreted in their raw form. I have two main concerns with this MS. Firstly, I think the nature of the data (nominal/proportion) was not the type that should be used in the gaussian GLM since it was not strictly continuous data. Additionally, there are simpler ways of finding the variables that are most important than that GLM. It is very likely that the gaussian GLM will fail the model assumptions (e.g. qqplots, residuals vs fitted). Even if it has to be used, there is a need for interaction terms and the right error function must be chosen. Again, my solution is to find a simpler way, like those pie charts; they are sufficient. The second major problem I have with the MS is that the authors didn’t seem to consider the importance of the interaction between their variables. For example, it is not clear if most of the older people were fruit farmers, if that is the case then the results will not have serious implications since the farmers may only have negative perceptions of the rodents without really using the chemicals (since there is no serious need). Lastly, please use fewer acronyms. It makes your work difficult to follow if there are so many acronyms to keep up with.

Below are other minor comments

1. Lines 9-10: there’s a need to mention the gap that your research aims to fill. Use a shorter version of the sentence in lines 62-64.
2. Lines 15-16: delete ‘based on model selection’ because it’s not necessary plus you may need to change the model.
3. Lines 29-30: It will be good to have at least one positive benefit of rodents before diving into all the negatives mentioned.
4. Line 45: There’s a need to provide an example of a crop, especially if is vegetable or rice.
5. Line 51: Need a bit of an example here. Is it detrimental to the soil? Does it affect non-target organisms/wildlife, does it leave toxic residues in streams. At least one or two examples here.
6. Lines 56-57: I suggest you break this sentence into two or rephrase it to make it simpler.
7. Lines 66-68: I would rephrase this to something like "In Taiwan, crops represent almost half of agricultural products and these include fruits (37%), vegetables (26%), and rice (15%).
8. Line 81: use 'toward' instead of 'for'.
9. Line 108: Please what is the full meaning of this acronym.
10. Lines 135-136: I don't understand the significance of this statement. I think it can come at the end of the data analyses section and I suggest having a topic sentence that is more fitting.
11. Line 142: No need for the 'only' words in this line.
12. Line 152: Please write out RA in full. The tables should be self-explanatory.
13. Lines 172-177: As mentioned before now, this is my biggest problem with this MS. Given that the Likert scale was just 1 to 5 (or 0 to 100% when converted to a percentage) a linear model which is a parametric test will not be the best, even if you treat it as proportion data and used a binomial test. Although you have a good sample size (126), the data is not continuous.
14. Lines 242-245: I doubt any farmer will have a positive view of rodents. Please maybe group with the indifferent and refer to them as indifferent.
15. Lines 28-292: A line graph would have been appropriate here. It also feels like a simple Pearson's correlation might just be sufficient here since the only variable used was the RA score.
16. Lines 306-309: The Authors should have asked why the farmers had a negative perception of the rodents in the questionnaire or present it as a limitation because this explanation seems far-fetched.
17. Lines 331-326: The authors need to point out that having correlations of variables may have helped them explain their results better rather than discussing the variables as stand-alone factors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment for response to reviewer's comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper reports on a survey of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) about rodent problems with farmers in Taiwan. Overall the paper is well written and clear. The analysis appeared to be appropriate, and the general findings were clear.

 

There were a few concerns about the paper that will need to be addressed:

1. There did not appear to be any question about farm size in the survey. How big were the farms? Are they considered “Smallholder” farmers? Are they subsistent or commercial farms?
2. No information provided about Human Research Ethics approvals for this study.
3. Cost-benefit analysis: There did not appear to be a question in the survey relating to perceived losses caused by rodents, so it is not possible to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.
4. Some parts of the Discussion were repeated – could be more streamlined.

 

Line 33: Suggest change to “Some species of rodents can be…”

 

Line 37: Suggest include Meerburg, B. G., Singleton, G. R., and Kijlstra, A. (2009). Rodent-borne diseases and their risks for public health. Critical Reviews in Microbiology 35, 221-270. doi: 10.1080/10408410902989837.

 

Line 46: Suggest avoid using terms such as “prolific” – they are already regarded as pests, so “prolific” is superfluous.

 

Line 66: Please clarify “farm crops” in this regard. Is it considered “smallholder” farms? It would be good to have this context.

 

Line 69: Over what area is rice grown in Taiwan?

 

Figure 1: “Schematic of” is not needed.

 

Line 108: Suggest “pre-tested” instead of “conducted”?

 

Table S1: Why is this “S”? If in main body of paper, it should not be “supplemental”? Why no variable for “farm size”? How were participants in the survey selected? Are they “household heads” or “farmers” or something else? This might influence the findings from the survey.

 

Line 123: What was the response rate of the surveys? How many were distributed versus returned with good data? How many were excluded? More detail is needed to determine how robust the survey was.

 

Table 3: I thought tables like this are normally sorted by models with best AIC at the top, then decreasing down the table, so the most parsimonious model is at the top.

 

Line 217: “worst pest” What were the other pests?

 

Line 235: Please state the model after “model 9”.

 

Line 295: The results here need to be put into context in relation to smallholder farmers. This is why it is important to understand the farm size from the survey; were they subsistent farmers or more commercially-orientated.

 

Line 311: Suggest state “age” as “farmer age”

 

Line 321: “dual problems” Rodent problems in houses as well as grain stores?

 

Line 328: “cost-benefit assessment”: This was not a true cost-benefit analysis. Was there a question about economics included in the survey questionnaire?

 

Line 357: Was there a question in the survey about ARs?

 

Line 358: Confusing sentence. Suggest “…were not likely…”

 

Line 339: Buckle & Smith is the whole book – it would be more valuable to cite the relevant Chapter instead.

 

Line 360: Any evidence of FGAR or SGAR resistance for these rodent species in Taiwan?

 

Line 362: “neophobia” not really likely with ARs because of the delayed onset of symptoms, which is partly why they were developed.

 

Line 368: Part of this was already discussed above – perhaps combine.

 

Line 381: again, part of this was discussed above.

 

Line 421: predators: unfortunately, there are very few studies that actually demonstrate this. There may be more impact on "predation risk" rather than in reduced rodent numbers or indeed damage (which is the ultimate aim of rodent control).

 

Line 432: “reactive measures”: Is it "reactive" or simply that farmers are not aware of alternative approaches? No experience with alternatives. Have always received hand-outs from government, and will continue to expect this always in the future.

 

Supplementary Tables (S4 & S5): please rank in order from highest to lowest

Author Response

Please see the attachment for response to reviewer's comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

That was a great revision of the MS and thanks a lot for taking time to provide clear explanations where necessary. I think  this work is good enough to be published. There may still be one or two people among your audience who may not be satisfied with some of the methods, but it is expected.