Improving the Authorization of Microbial Biological Control Products (MBCP) in the European Union within the EU Green Deal Framework
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Article should be presented in more focus. Argument does not come across clearly.
Materials and methods is not appropriate here but an Analysis section in the light of the literature review and relevant government web sites should be included and clearly presented conclusions are required.
Evaluations of BCAs require more examples in relation to their safety and environmental toxicity.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
General comment: we made more than 100 corrections and modifications, added some text, and extended the literature review according to your recommendations. We have also modified the title to make it more suggestive. Thank you for your effort to help us improve our article
Comment: The article should be presented in more focus. Argument does not come across clearly.
Answer: We have modified the formulation of our argument in the Abstract, content, and Conclusions
Comment: Materials and methods are not appropriate here but an Analysis section in the light of the literature review and relevant government web sites should be included and clearly presented conclusions are required.
Answer: we have modified the name of the section in Analysis.
We have rewritten the second part of the Abstract and formulated our research question, conclusions, and recommendations. We have included and description of our efforts at the end of the Introduction. We have modified the Conclusions to increase the focus
We introduced extra citations that have links to the relevant government websites.
For some reason, the citation editor (Zotero) does not allow us to introduce all government websites
Comment: Evaluations of BCAs require more examples in relation to their safety and environmental toxicity.
Answer: We have introduced six extra references to the literature that point to the lower risks posed by MBCA in comparison with chemical pesticides
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This work investigates whether the legislative requirements cause MBCP authorization delays or if they are instead caused by the inappropriate application of the legislative framework by EU Member States (MS). The author through recent literature identifies this two-tier system and its imperfections as the main barrier to the faster deployment of large-scale microbial-based solutions for agricultural pest control. And discussed the efficiency of the current EU regulatory framework on the MBCA approval and MBCP authorization. Indicating Simplify the dossiers and streamline should help accelerate the MBCP general availability and integration in agronomic crops' pest management plans. However, there are some problems that the author should consider and revise:
Point 1：The line 36 “As environmental degradation and climate change top our global agenda, agriculture's impact on the environment is more and more scrutinized.” Please list some relevant literature.
Point 2：The line 41 “Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and the employment of biocontrol solutions received the most public attention and research investment as means to generate sustainable alternatives.” Please list some relevant literature.
Point 3：At the end of line 77, the author should highlightly introduce the main research point of this article, which forms a strong echo with the previous and later writing.
Point 4：The line 93 “…….allowing the identification of low-risk products." [14] The authors propose wavering many of the obsolete data requirements relevant to chemical pesticides to limit these problems.”, advising change this sentence to “…….allowing the identification of low-risk products." And the authors propose wavering many of the obsolete data requirements relevant to chemical pesticides to limit these problems[14].”
Point 5：In the results and discussion section, it is recommended to list subheading based on the content and expand them hierarchically.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
General comment: we made more than 100 corrections and modifications, added some text, and extended the literature review according to your recommendations. We have also modified the title, to make it more suggestive. Thank you for your effort to help us improve our article
Point 1：The line 36 "As environmental degradation and climate change top our global agenda, agriculture's impact on the environment is more and more scrutinized." Please list some relevant literature.
Answer: We added three references and another one explaining this link with the EU's Green Deal
Point 2：The line 41 "Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and the employment of biocontrol solutions received the most public attention and research investment as means to generate sustainable alternatives." Please list some relevant literature.
Answer: We have introduced several relevant references, as well as one reference to the website of the European Commission
Point 3：At the end of line 77, the author should highlightly introduce the main research point of this article, which forms a strong echo with the previous and later writing.
Answer: We have added a paragraph presenting the research question and main research points.
Point 4：The line 93 "…….allowing the identification of low-risk products." [14] The authors propose wavering many of the obsolete data requirements relevant to chemical pesticides to limit these problems.", advising change this sentence to "…….allowing the identification of low-risk products." And the authors propose wavering many of the obsolete data requirements relevant to chemical pesticides to limit these problems[14]."
Answer: Thank you for your suggestions. We have replaced the formulation
Point 5：In the results and discussion section, it is recommended to list subheading based on the content and expand them hierarchically.
Answer: Answering your and the other reviewers' comment too, we have modified the sections and added two subheadings to increase clarity
Point: peer-review-19401341.v1.pdf
Answer: We have only seen the text you referred to in points 1-5, underlined with yellow. We have addressed all comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
As the content relate to legislative aspects, I recommend a second review by Dr Philippe Desmeth at the Belgian Science Policy Office.
