Assessing Trade-Offs between Agricultural Productivity and Ecosystem Functions: A Review of Science-Based Tools?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present article is very interesting and it focuses on the trade-offs among Ecosystem Services, and specially on agricultural land. Knowing the situation of Climate Crisis we are in, it is very important the issue. However, I find the article a bit descriptive and the main part is the last one were the tools are commented. However, I think it would be interesting to add an example of how they have been the main tools used. It I true that we can always go to reference used but I lack a bit of information of that.

On the other hand, it is never addressed the issue that we already are producing more than enough food for the World population, where are the problems that lead not to be enough as it is lost in the way etc. How at least the production of 23% of the agricultural land is lost for different reason…I think it would improve the paper.

 

I have seen one or two typographic errors that I am sure they will notice them easily.

 

I would also appreciate if they define what they understand as environmental sustainability.

Author Response

The present article is very interesting and it focuses on the trade-offs among Ecosystem Services, and specially on agricultural land. Knowing the situation of Climate Crisis we are in, it is very important the issue.

 

1. However, I find the article a bit descriptive and the main part is the last one were the tools are commented.

We have expanded the section where the practical tools are discussed and also subsequently their applicability to assessment of trade-offs.

2. However, I think it would be interesting to add an example of how they have been the main tools used. It I true that we can always go to reference used but I lack a bit of information of that.

We have added some examples of how the tools have been used in different countries and regions, and also developed the ideas of how they could be used in the future to engage with policy and decision-making on trade-offs.

3. On the other hand, it is never addressed the issue that we already are producing more than enough food for the World population, where are the problems that lead not to be enough as it is lost in the way etc. How at least the production of 23% of the agricultural land is lost for different reason…I think it would improve the paper.

We have revised the text that says that agricultural production has been reduced in Africa and now say that its share of the global total has gone down, which of course is serious as Arica is the continent with the fastest population growth. It also has the highest share of the population dependent on farming for food and income.

4. I have seen one or two typographic errors that I am sure they will notice them easily.

 We have corrected typos throughout the text.

5. I would also appreciate if they define what they understand as environmental sustainability.

We use the definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland report from 1987 that is also reflected in the SDG agenda that we refer to both in the introduction and discussion, but do not see the need to include this additional text:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

    the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

    the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Your paper addresses in a compelling manner the trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystems functions. I particularly like the section pertaining to discussions which is well structured and gathers all the key messages of your research.

Author Response

Your paper addresses in a compelling manner the trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystems functions. I particularly like the section pertaining to discussions which is well structured and gathers all the key messages of your research.

We appreciate the positive comments on how we have addressed the very complex issue of trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions.

Reviewer 3 Report

The review article offers a substantial amount of work, and the authors spend a generous amount of time and effort to prepare the article. However, the intellectual capability of the paper to be published in a reputed journal can be questioned. Here are, I think, the principal reasons.

1.      The availability of practical tools to assess many of the critical issues related to agricultural productivity and trade-offs with ecosystem functions and services, and the readiness of scientific 486 findings in supplying support and guidance in this respect.

2.      The article lacks a clear intellectual objective. Of course, the title itself poses a question. But this question is too broad to have an analytical and in-depth answer. Science has offered so much and has continued to provide and will continue to offer. The industrial revolution, the green revolution, the white revolution, and modern farming practices are all science-based innovations. I find little novelty in the publication of this article in a reputed journal.

3.      The Materials and Methods detailed in this paper are traditional and obsolete in today’s AI age. The author used the AI software Rayyan. Elicit is another AI-powered software for generating reviews of literature. The data created through this seem more mechanical rather than logical. Segregating the findings of a paper based on a single word or phrase can mean little.

4.      The number of articles does little to advance a concept. Rather, how the concept has progressed is important.

5.      In line 520, the authors write, “Yields are decreasing in Sub-Saharan Africa where the average cereal yield was 57 percent of that of the world average in the 1960s but reduced to 42 percent of the world average by the 1990s.” This does not mean that the yields are decreasing. The yields in the rest of the world have increased faster than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

6.      The conclusions are obvious. “Practical tools for trade-off analysis are primarily found in the grey literature and have been developed and applied by development organizations with support from science.” Applied research results are usually not published in sophisticated journal outlets. Publishing in advanced journals requires intellectual ability and innovation of new theories or techniques. So, it is obvious that applied research results are published in outlets, i.e., reports, presentations, discussions, field trips, etc., which the author calls ‘grey literature’.

7.      The literature search was conducted in September – October 2021, which is dated for this purpose. The author may update the search, which may result in a different outcome.

 

 

Author Response

The review article offers a substantial amount of work, and the authors spend a generous amount of time and effort to prepare the article. However, the intellectual capability of the paper to be published in a reputed journal can be questioned. Here are, I think, the principal reasons.

1. The availability of practical tools to assess many of the critical issues related to agricultural productivity and trade-offs with ecosystem functions and services, and the readiness of scientific 486 findings in supplying support and guidance in this respect.

We used the approach most academic journals request for systematic reviews and mapping. The review was designed according to the PRISMA-P guide and the PICO approach was used to guide the search process and frame the research question.

2. The article lacks a clear intellectual objective. Of course, the title itself poses a question. But this question is too broad to have an analytical and in-depth answer. Science has offered so much and has continued to provide and will continue to offer. The industrial revolution, the green revolution, the white revolution, and modern farming practices are all science-based innovations. I find little novelty in the publication of this article in a reputed journal.

The intellectual objective was guided by the PICO approach and framed as: i) the availability of practical tools to assess the issues related to agricultural productivity and trade-offs with ecosystem functions for the core producers of food, and ii) the readiness of scientific findings in supplying support and guidance in this respect. The novelty is that there are no other systematic reviews that have posed this question (according to our review) and that there is a knowledge gap as to what tools are available and their applicability in solving this wicked problem related to sustainable development (see definition above).

3. The Materials and Methods detailed in this paper are traditional and obsolete in today’s AI age. The author used the AI software Rayyan. Elicit is another AI-powered software for generating reviews of literature. The data created through this seem more mechanical rather than logical. Segregating the findings of a paper based on a single word or phrase can mean little.

We used Rayyan as a tool to facilitate the review by the two groups of reviewers, not to generate results using AI. Only Figure 2 has been generated using Rayyan. The rest of the analysis and figures are the results of the manual reviews by the two groups of reviewers. We followed the guidance on the use of the Rayyan software from two leading academic libraries in our home country.

 

4. The number of articles does little to advance a concept. Rather, how the concept has progressed is important.

We agree that the number of articles is not so important. But according to the PRISMA-P guide, the review process and the number of articles reviewed at each step must be stated. Under the results section, we analyze how the concept has evolved over time and space (different regions).

5. In line 520, the authors write, “Yields are decreasing in Sub-Saharan Africa where the average cereal yield was 57 percent of that of the world average in the 1960s but reduced to 42 percent of the world average by the 1990s.” This does not mean that the yields are decreasing. The yields in the rest of the world have increased faster than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This sentence has been changed to :The yield gap between Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the rest of the world is growing:  the average cereal yield in SSA was 57 percent of that of the world average in the 1960s but reduced to 42 percent of the world average by the 1990s.

6. The conclusions are obvious. “Practical tools for trade-off analysis are primarily found in the grey literature and have been developed and applied by development organizations with support from science.” Applied research results are usually not published in sophisticated journal outlets. Publishing in advanced journals requires intellectual ability and innovation of new theories or techniques. So, it is obvious that applied research results are published in outlets, i.e., reports, presentations, discussions, field trips, etc., which the author calls ‘grey literature’.

We do not entirely agree with this comment, as there are many journals that publish applied research and even have it in their titles. However, we have tried to introduce more intellectual rigour in our discussion and conclusions and focused on the use of the tools in trade-off analysis, not necessarily their use by farmers, which may not be realistic. We have also linked to discussion of trade-offs between agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services to key SDG targets that need to be balanced.

7. The literature search was conducted in September – October 2021, which is dated for this purpose. The author may update the search, which may result in a different outcome.

We are not able to update the systematic search in academic databases, but have checked the publication of articles and reports with respect to practical tools. Several of the authors also work in this field and have not found any new tools for trade-off analysis in the ‘grey literature’, let alone in more academic publications, where it takes much longer to get this type of applied research published.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I am attaching my report on the authors' response to my review report.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We agree that it is important to be open to examining possibilities in the scientific world, and we appreciate the references you have provided. We have reviewed them and added them to our discussion, and make reference to the fact that there has been some progress in recent studies with trade-off analysis between food production and other ecosystem services. Furthermore, we also acknowledge that tools for adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector are under development. These are very useful additions, but does not change our major conclusions from the systematic review, but rather confirms them.

However, we would like to clarify that our focus in this review was not on the general topic of ecosystem services and trade-offs analysis, but on the specific issue of practical tools that can be used by decision-makers and stakeholders to assess trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions.