Economic Efficiency of Climate Smart Agriculture Technology: Case of Agrophotovoltaics
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Review for Revised Submission against Previous Comments: Please see my review comments in red text.
Reviewer #2
1. There is a curiosity how this paper is relevant to the scope of the journal MDPI Land? It needs to
be justified well before publishing the paper in this journal for which authors need to make the case
and the concerned Editor needs to decide.
Ø The agricultural sector is largely land-related, and it is important to apply CSA technology to
improve the land's carbon sink capacity. Therefore, this paper has high relevance to the
following items among the aims pursued by LAND.
• Land/land-use/land-cover change.
• Land management including agriculture, forestry, the built environment, and others.
• Land–climate interactions, including climate–biosphere–biodiversity interactions.
Ø Additionally, APV improves land-use efficiency by optimally utilizing technology-ecological
and technology-economic synergies as a technology of CSA. This study confirmed that APV
application brings net profits to farms in all regions, which can contribute to alleviating
farmers' concerns about APV installation and expanding the application of APV.
Comment 1 – Revised Submission: For me, it is not satfisfactory reply. Although authors tried to make the case of profit, the direct and indirect linkage on land productivity vis-à-vis effects on land area blockage due to sunlight patterns during day time are neither covered nor evaluated so as to determine the relevance of the paper with the journal. Howerver, as said earlier, the academic Editor can decide this issue in a better way.
2. Combine Section 3 and 4 by making them sub-section of new Section to be titled as Methodology.
Although study limitations are provided in conclusion section, there is a need to incorporate specific
limitations of the methodology vis-à-vis merits and demerits by adding a sub-section in
methodology part. After combining the two and adding a new sub-section, following will rearrangement is required in the manuscript:
‘3. Methodology’
‘3.1 Estimation Model Specification’
‘3.2 Data Sources’
‘3.3 Limitation of the methodology’
Ø As the reviewer pointed out, the sections are reorganized as follows:
3 Methodology
3.1 Estimation of Model Specification
A. Agricultural Output and Cost
B. Productivity
3.2 Data Sources
A. Data for Agricultural output and production costs
B. Costs and Subsidies for APV
3.3 Limitation of the methodology
- The detailed description of the GMM model is added in this section to quantitatively explain
the model derivation process.
- The advantages (which can solve the endogeneity) and the disadvantages (incompetence in
utilizing all data by placing lagged variables as the variables) of the GMM model are explicitly
explained.
- Additional explanations are added in this section for the different structure of the data
between GLS and GMM, and how different statistical properties (normality, heteroscedasticity,
multicollinearity) affect the models and why they are insignificant.
Comment 2 – Revised Submission: It is okay. No further action required.
3. There is no discussion section described or included in the manuscript. There is a need to add
Discussion Section after the Results section. Develop and incorporate a good discussion duly
supported by comparative references which need to supplement ateast 10-12 more citations in
discussion part.
Ø A discussion section (Section 6) is added to explain the importance of verifying the
effectiveness of CSA technologies and the importance of APV among CSA technologies. The
relevant citations are also included to support the discussion.
Comment 3 – Revised Submission: Not satisfactory. How the discussion section can be added after the conclusion is already done. Although the authors have added discussion section, it is at wrong place and also underdeveloped as I can see only two citations added. There is a need to relocate it before the conclusion and enrich the contents with comparative analysis. There must be atleast 10-12 most recent citations for comparion of your results. Secondly, also incorporate an ending disucssion paragraph regarding limitation of the study in terms of direct and indirect linkage of the topic with impact of APC on agriculture land area vis-à-vis the element of sunlight, which you have not covered in the study at the moment, though tried to mention some limitations. For the purpose of developing discussion on such limitation, authors need to cite at least 3-5 most recent relevant articles. Altogether, this section needs 13-15 most recent citations.
4. In Conclusion, add significant contribution of the study towards the climate cause. It also needs to
be highlighted in the Abstract part as well.
Ø The results have shown that the regions with lower agricultural productivity prefer climatesmart
farming technologies. Adopting CSA technologies (e.g. APV) is highly prefered even in
the areas where agricultural productivity and profitability are low and where it would be
reasonable to abandon the agricultural practice. Therefore, CSA technology can help build a
sustainable agricultural environment while coping with future climate change. The summary of
this finding is briefly introduced in the abstract and also in the beginning of the conclusion.
Comment 4 – Revised Submission: Not satisfactory response at the moment. Revisit the conclusion and enrich it after developing the discussion as per comment above and the also taking into account the previous comment.
5. Re-organize all heading numbers as after making changes above.
Ø As the reviewer recommended, all the heading numbers are re-organized according the changes
that are made for each section. Also we unified the words that refer to ‘solar technology’ to
‘APV’, and ‘prodcution outcome and costs’ to ‘agricultural outcome and costs’.
Comment 5 – Revised Submission: It needs to be revisited again after placement of discussion section at the right place.
Author Response
Please see the attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The analyzed topic is very interesting and important.
The title is adequate to the research problem being undertaken. The correct terminology and key words was used. The paper contains the appropriate structure. The paper has been correctly divided into relevant sections, and their content coincides with their titles.The authors focused very much on the research part, but devoted far too little attention to the theoretical part.
The paper uses a unsatisfactory number of references from international literature (53 items). In my opinion, this is not enough to show the background of this topic.
The literature references used are current and relevant with the topic.
The authors absolutely do not maintain the numbering of footnotes according to the chronology of their appearance in the text.
In two parts: introduction and literature review, two different aims of the paper are given. In addition, the aim is not addressed in the final section and it is not known whether the aim has been achieved.
The paper lacks a clearly written research hypothesis
The research part of the paper is impressive. However, please provide some detail. Please describe clearly why such indicators were studied, what period did the data come from and why from this period, where did the data come from?
Please write why this smart technology element has been analyzed?
It is necessary to sort out the issue of tables: a) they are double-numbered, e.g. there are two tables with No. 1, two tables with No. 2, no table with No. 9, and No. 8 is after table No. 12; b) there are no references in the text to individual tables, and in some cases the numbers are given incorrectly. There is no attention to the continuity of the text and its logic.
The paper raises an important and current problem. The paper itself, however, requires additional work on it, as it is still underdeveloped and gives the impression that several different people put together their fragments of the text, without a deeper analysis of whether they have logical continuity.
The discussion part should be placed before the conclusion part. The conclusion part should be extended
Author Response
please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
My comments and suggestions for the article titled “Economic Efficiency of Climate Smart Agriculture Technology: Case of Agrophotovoltaics”.
The study is well done and has added insight to the climate change development agenda. I only have some few comments or suggestion.
1. Kindly bring the discussion section before the conclusion.
2. Conclusion should be labelled as conclusion and policy implications. Try and highlight the practical and theoretical policy implications of the study in this section.
3. Also, I suggest you add your limitations to the conclusion section.
All the best.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I really like your scientific research. It is relevant and novel. The research purpose is clearly stated and an appropriate method of approach is applied. The conclusion part is also well-written. You clearly combine the research questions with the results. Also, prospect for further research is provided
Reviewer 2 Report
It is a good study. The authors are successful in making a good case by developing relevant objective and methodology for justifying and promoting the CSA technology which is highly needed to achieve milestones for climate adaptation. I believe it would add value to the existing pool of knowledge. However, I have following observations to improve the quality of the paper:
1. There is a curiosity how this paper is relevant to the scope of the journal MDPI Land? It needs to be justified well before publishing the paper in this journal for which authors need to make the case and the concerned Editor needs to decide.
2. Combine Section 3 and 4 by making them sub-section of new Section to be titled as Methodology. Although study limitations are provided in conclusion section, there is a need to incorporate specific limitations of the methodology vis-à-vis merits and demerits by adding a sub-section in methodology part. After combining the two and adding a new sub-section, following will re-arrangement is required in the manuscript:
‘3. Methodology’
‘3.1 Estimation Model Specification’
‘3.2 Data Sources’
‘3.3 Limitation of the methodology’
3. There is no discussion section described or included in the manuscript. There is a need to add Discussion Section after the Results section. Develop and incorporate a good discussion duly supported by comparative references which need to supplement ateast 10-12 more citations in discussion part.
4. In Conclusion, add significant contribution of the study towards the climate cause. It also needs to be highlighted in the Abstract part as well.
5. Re-organize all heading numbers as after making changes above.
Reviewer 3 Report
About the submission with the title "Economic Efficiency of Climate Smart Agriculture Technology: Case of Agrophotovoltaics in Korea" I have the following comments:
From the abstract it is expected to understand the main motivations, gaps, objectives, methodologies, novelties and main insights. This is not visible in the present version of the abstract.
The literature review is weak and misses several important documents related with the topics addressed.
A section for material and methods is missing. In any case, I found difficulties to find the interrelationships between "economic efficiency", "climate smart agriculture" and "agrophotovoltaics". The models considered, the variables used and the methodologies taken into account (GLS and GMM) were not proprely justified their importance the interlinkages among each other.
Nonetheless, the major concerns are with the regressions (table 6, ....), where there is a total lack of concern with the multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity, endogeneity, normality, linearity, autocorrelation, adequacy of the model..... This compromise the robustness of the results obtained and consequently of the conclusions found.
Considering the weaknesses identified before, this paper is far to be in a version publishable and in this way I suggest to reject.
