Benefits of Non-Commercial Urban Agricultural Practices—A Systematic Literature Review
, Iona Yuelu Huang 2, Laura Vickers 3, Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia 1 and Leticia Chico-Santamarta 1,4,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript applied evaluated Benefits of non-commercial Urban Agricultural Practices. Some of my comments to improve the quality of this paper are:
1. Please revise the whole English language in the paper and review it again
2. Better discuss on the structure and also compare the results of this paper with other researches
3. Choice of methods, assumptions and methodologies needs to be suitably justified and or provided with apt citations
4. Limitations of the approach should be stated.
5. Main assumptions of the approach should be stated and commented.
6. In the introduction, you need to connect the state of the art to your paper goals. Please follow the literature review by a clear and concise state of the art analysis. This should clearly show the knowledge gaps identified and link them to your paper goals. Please reason both the novelty and the relevance of your paper goals.
7. The benefits of the results in the wide perspective of industrial production are not discussed i.e. the results should be further elaborated to show how they could be used for the real applications
8. In the conclusions, in addition to summarizing the actions taken and results, please strengthen the explanation of their significance. It is recommended to use quantitative reasoning comparing with appropriate benchmarks.
9. Using some of the results in abstract section and improve it.
10. Add the nomenclature
11. How can use this method in industry and improve it?
12. Based on the above comments, I think that this paper need to improve the quality and solve some problems and find a solution to use it in applied studies and then send it again for evaluation.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguagePlease see the comments
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIntroduction
1. The introduction is too long. It should be shortened and more focused on the benefits of non-commercial urban agriculture (NCUA), rather than general background.
2. Objective and contribution: Clearly state the study's main objectives and its unique contributions to the field. This could be included in a separate paragraph toward the end of the introduction, summarizing the research questions, methods, and expected outcomes.
3. At the end of the introduction, a breakdown of the article with an outline of the content of each chapter should be presented.
Scope of the Review
Relevance and context of literature review: The manuscript lacks the presentation of previous researches. It would be beneficial to discuss the limitations and gaps in the current literature.
Results
The results section is too long. It should be shortened and more focused on the research outcomes.
Discussion
In the results discussion, it would be beneficial to provide a more in-depth analysis of the benefits of implementing non-commercial urban agriculture using the proposed approach.
Conclusion
The conclusion section should provide a clear and concise summary of the main findings and their significance. Consider rephrasing some sentences for better clarity and emphasizing the key results and implications of your study.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsFirst of all, I want to congratulate the authors on the chosen topic. Urban agriculture, as an alternative food system, should facilitate a radical change in the way we grow, transport and consume food. That is why it is very important to gather knowledge and information on this topic.
A general remark is that the structure of the article has too many subsections, which is not reader-friendly. I suggest the authors think again and remove most of the subchapters, especially the one in the introductory part.
Additionally, after each figure and table, the authors explain in too much detail what is presented in them. Such an approach reduces the reader's interest and motivation. It is much more important that the authors offer the "main message" under each graph - what we see on them. In addition, it is requested that authors check the structure calculation (%) and spelling for each chart.
The discussion should be enriched by the interpretation of the research results and with their comparison with the other literature findings, but also with our own observations and evaluations in terms of discovering the roots of presented findings. So, I suggest using one complex scheme pointing out the multifaceted concept of UA – (for example Nikolić, A., Uzunović, M., Mujčinović, A. (2022). Perspectives and Limitations of Urban Agriculture in Transition Economies: A Case Study in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Leal Filho, W., Djekic, I., Smetana, S., Kovaleva, M. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Across the Food Supply Chain. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360439625_Perspectives_and_Limitations_of_Urban_Agriculture_in_Transition_Economies_A_Case_Study_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina). This scheme can be basis to comment results of the paper in more details with adding information instead repetitions of the same fact presented in the part research results. In any case, a major change has to be undertaken in this part.
Finally, conclusions have to be harmonized with (new) discussion, outlining the main results, but making clear what are the implications for policymakers (adaptation of the law, plans, and strategies), implications for rural development (green and smart strategies - blurring the separation lines between urban and rural areas), for NGOs and SDGs.
As mentioned, the basic limitation of UA development is an inadequate understanding of the complex and complex concept of UA. Usually, UA is attached to food security issues, and all other functions and possibilities it offers are ignored (that's why a complex scheme of the UA concept should be inserted). This has to be mentioned as a main limitation of UA development. Also, the lack of skills to engage the community in UA initiatives has to be mentioned as a UA limitation, but also an area where public policy interventions are needed.
In conclusion, when future avenues for UA research are suggested, the role of NCUA in the circular economy of the food system has to be mentioned.
Some specific remarks are as follows:
The PRISMA flow diagram for systematic literature review is used, while in the method authors refer to the research method as “mapping” instead of systematic literature review. I strongly suggest using a “systematic literature review” instead of mapping.
Table 1. Search terms used in Scopus and Web of Science – are not clear. The first column (Population, Intervention, Outcomes) has to be explained. Also, the meaning of „Components“ is not clear (second column).
Figure 3 - please check spelling.
According to Figure 3 the highest number of articles are in USA, Australia, Canada, UK and EU countries - this has to be corrected. The statement that in Croatia population is equally divided between urban and rural areas is not correct. It has to be changed. I would say that urbanization, environmental issues as well as the future development of tourism, and social issues (mental health, unhealthy diet, and poverty) drive UA development in Croatia. In Europe, public policies regarding food, diet, and health are strong drivers of NUA. So statements explaining the situation in EU countries have to be adduced to accept remarks made. The calculation of UA types described in 40 articles is wrong - it is stated CG 72%, then UF 25%, A 17%, and CG 10% - summa is more than 100%. please correct it.
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRecommendations to authors
This is a nicely presented systematic map. Please provide a table with the evidence found in each article regarding the different categories of benefits. Then you can refer to this table to present the benefits identified. Please find below my detailed comments.
- In line 180: Please provide more information on how you applied (manually or using the WoS tools/interface) the inclusion/exclusion criteria (“After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria”).
- In line 186: The PRISMA diagram is complete and very well presented. However, I have a comment on the large number of articles excluded; this means that the search expression should be refined before proceeding to the final search for eligible articles.
- In line 187: Please add 2020 after “PRISMA”. Based on the flow chart you present in the manuscript this seems to be the latest version of PRISMA, the “PRISMA 2020”.
- In line 316, figure 6: I would prefer a bar chart instead of a pie chart. Pie charts are usually avoided in scientific articles.
- In line 328: Remove bold from “Number of articles that used each”.
- In line 376: It is not clear how the different categories (and sub-categories) of benefits were identified.
- In line 411: Just a suggestion: since there are several countries with only one article maybe you can consider grouping the countries into continents.
- In line 475, in discussion: Regarding the way the results are presented (“The analysis of the 40 selected articles show that the implementation of UAP provide a key contribution”) I must note that you must provide a table with the evidence you found in each article regarding social/environmental/economic benefits. The way they are discussed in the text is ok, but you must provide a table with what benefits you identified in which articles. For example, the sentence “this paper finds that the implementation of urban areas has allowed to help in improving the economic situation of many households” must be based on identified evidence found in specific articles that are presented in a table. This way the whole process is much less biased since it is based on the evidence found in the eligible articles included in the systematic map and it is not a subjective conclusion or just an interpretation.
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript entitled “Benefits of non-commercial Urban Agricultural Practices – A systematic map” presents the research related to the benefits of non-commercial urban agriculture (NCUA), using a systematic mapping method. The topic is in line with the tendency of research conducted in the world.
General comments:
In my opinion the Abstract should be revised and modified.
The literature review seems to be good selected, however, in the last 2 years, many articles on urban agriculture have been published.
It is not clear what is the hypothesis of performed study.
The authors should enhance the discussion and highlight the importance of performed study in terms of the sustainability of these practices.
The novelty and limitations of the performed research should be delineated.
There is no broader discussion of the problems and limitations related to the implementation of urban farms, this also applies to the use and management of products obtained from these crops, e.g. pollution.
The title indicates that the study will be comprehensive, but after reading the text, the reader may have impression that is still lack of mentioned comprehensiveness, especially in regards to the literature review and the discussion on the outcomes.
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsModerate editing of English language required
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageModerate editing of English language required
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRecommendations to authors
Almost all issues have been addressed. Some minor recommendations are given below to further improve the quality of the manuscript.
- In line 399: Please the pie diagram. There is no need to keep to graphs for the same thing.
- In line 533: Figure 10 presents all the information needed but the format can be improved grouping the references presented by category. Please follow this template: use as rows the categories (economic, environmental, etc) and just one column entitled “References”. For example, row 1: “Economic” and in column “References”: Ambrose et al., 2023; Camps-Calvet 2016; Delshad 2022 etc. (all the references in “economic”). You may add a column to count the number of references in each category.
- In line 664: The “conclusions” section is lengthy; please consider to move part of the text in “discussion” to keep the section “conclusions” clear.
Author Response
See attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
