The Impact of Agricultural Digitization on the High-Quality Development of Agriculture: An Empirical Test Based on Provincial Panel Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General thoughts:

The authors of the article undertook interesting research related to the digitization of agriculture. However, the very term of digitization of agriculture is too general. The article should clearly define what the Authors understand by the term digitization of agriculture? Is it only the support of devices and modern technologies - if so, to what extent? Is it perhaps the use of advanced digital technology that helps to carry out agricultural work with high precision (e.g. sowing, agricultural treatments, harvesting or handling animals on farms), determined by IT algorithms dedicated to these issues?

Detailed comments:

1. Verse 169-174: The article announces research hypotheses in the plural. And then only one hypothesis is formulated, number 1. So why this number? It needs to be corrected. Another hypothesis is found only in the next chapter 2.2. Such an organization of hypotheses is unacceptable. They should be put together in one chapter so that they are consistent with each other. Moreover, the content of both hypotheses is largely consistent. Their content is so consistent that it seems appropriate to formulate one research hypothesis, combining the two existing hypotheses.

2. Data from Table 1-4 should be visualized on the charts.

3. It is also advisable to superimpose the obtained results in regions (provinces) on the map of China in order to visualize the discussed issues.

4. Literature, including 47 items, comes mainly from Asia. The literature review should be deepened, including items from other countries and continents, especially in terms of articles from the last three years.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

1. We combined the two hypotheses into one.
2. We visualized Table 3 and Table 4. Table 1 and Table 2 show the index systems, they are too hard to make into Charts.
3. We visualized the final issue we discussed into map of China.
4. we replaced 13 Chinese references into international articles and 10 of them are from last three years. We also added 3 new international articles, they are all from last three years.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper investigates the impact of digitization of agriculture on quality development, with an innovative research perspective. 

However, the article still needs to be improved in many aspects.

1 In the abstract, the innovation of your research should be more prominent.

2 In term of variables, the selection and measurement of variables need to be adjusted:

（1）Please list more references for variable selection to enhance persuasiveness.

（2）Explanatory variable, a key variable to measure digitalization, seems to be incomplete if only two indicators are used for entropy calculation.

（3）In Table 1, the total quantity index and intensity index are mixed together.

（4）Some indicators cannot be compared across regions. e.g Fertilizer application intensity, Application intensity of pesticides, Agricultural water intensity

（5）Some indicators are unreasonable. e.g Development level of agricultural e-commerce (Many provinces do not have Taobao Village in 2011-2020), Agricultural ecological environment.

3 Some details should be noted:

(1)Line 100：Typographical error.

(2)Line 210：I and T should be lowercase letters

(3)Using robust standard errors can avoid heteroscedasticity

(4)Instrumental variable, not tool variable

Author Response

1.We improved the abstract.

2.(1) We listed more references to support variables selection.

(2) We expended the explanatory variable index system.

(3) We changed all indicators to intensity indicators.

(4) We excluded the indicators, “Fertilizer application intensity, Application intensity of pesticides, Agricultural water intensity”, from the index system.

(5) We replaced the indicator “Development level of agricultural e-commerce” and “Agricultural ecological environment” with “Disaster situation” and “Urbanization level”.

3.(1)(2) We double checked the paper and tried to revised all mistakes.

  (3) We using robust standard errors instead of the original one.

  (4) We replace “tool variable” with “Instrumental variable”.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The study is dealing with an interesting topic, and needs following changes to improve its quality further:

1- Abstract should be constructive, need to improve.

2- Keywords should be five.

3-In the introduction part need to clearly mention that how this study is going to make novel contribution in the previous literature, for this purpose there should be separate paragraph at the end of introduction part.

4- In the methodology part need to recheck all equations carefully.

5- In the results and discussion part, need to add some findings related literature to justify the outcomes.

6- In the Conclusion part, need to add limitations and future research directions.

7- The English language check should be done with the help of a native English speaker.

Author Response

1. We improved the abstract.
2. We added more keywords.
3. We added the contribution of this study at the end of introduction.
4. We checked the equations and modified the mistakes.
5. We added related literatures to support our findings.
6. We added limitations and future research directions at the end of the Conclusion part.
7. We improved the language of our paper with help of native language editor. (It is too confused to mark academic changes and languages editing changes in one version, so we only provide the version with academic changes before language editing here.)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I believe that after the introduced corrections, the article is interesting and developed at a high level of editing. I believe the article should be published in the LAND journal.