Agricultural Yield Responses to Climate Variabilities in West Africa: A Food Supply and Demand Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe current investigation entitled “Agricultural yield responses to climate variabilities in West Africa: A food supply and demand analysis” authored by Schultze et al. focused on empirical analysis of various weather and crop time series using boxplots as well as trend patterns to characterize the performance of the agricultural sector over time. Moreover, the statistical findings are balanced with regional population information to evaluate food supply and demand in three selected case study sites.
Comment/suggestions
Abstract section is written well; however, I suggest authors to kindly follow the author guidelines of the journals. Since as per the journal guidelines the abstract should be less than 200. What it looks, more than the permissible limit.
The introduction section well explained the background information, previous literature and arguments to conduct this investigation. The rational of the current investigation are well written and objectives are clearly indicted. However, to strengthen this section, I suggest author to kindly provide more background detailed information with recent literature.
Figure 1 are very tough to be recognized, so I suggest authors to kindly prepare the figure with better clarity. Moreover, in the figure, coordinates (latitude and longitude in grid form) needs to be mentioned. Overall, the quality of figures are not good at all. In the material and method section, the author need to add a table indicating different datasets used in current investigation along with the source and other accessary information. The captions of table 1 and 3, 4, 5 and so on need to be more elaborated. In table 2, the author have indicated kg/a what it means kg/ year or something else, kindly mention it.
In the methodology section, author need to prepare a sub-section i.e., Statistical analysis indicating all the statistical parameters used in the current investigation.
Regarding the findings of the current investigation, I have some major concerns like, in figure 3 thee author have mentioned only a, b an c only 3 figures while others have annotation like this. Moreover, the author have to reduced the result section provided for the box plot, since such elaborated results does not needed in the research article. Authors, have conducted the Mann Kendal trend analysis, why authors have not determined the Sen’s slope (which indicate the magnitude of change) and the trend analysis should be provided in the form of figures.
Otherwise the results section looks good. The author should comprehend the discussion by adding more recent literature. The conclusion section should be limited to the constructive statements from the manuscript and generalised statements should be removed, thus should reduce this section. Clearly outline how this study advances the existing literature and addresses the identified gaps. Moreover, the authors also need to mention the limitations of the current investigation.
The policy recommendations lack specificity. To strengthen this section, provide actionable and concrete policy recommendations based on the findings.
Overall, the manuscript have novelity, but authors need address some of the comments mentioned above to overall improve the quality of the manuscript.
Thus, I recommend minor revision for the manuscript.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
We are thankful to the reviewer for appreciating the manuscript and the comments. We considered almost all comments. A brief response is attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We are thankful to the reviewer for appreciating the manuscript and the comments. We considered almost all comments. A brief response is attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsJournal name: Land
Review Report
Article number: land-2773843
Title: Agricultural yield responses to climate variabilities in West Africa: A food supply and demand analysis
I have carefully reviewed the article titled " Agricultural yield responses to climate variabilities in West Africa: A food supply and demand analysis", and found that in the research, the authors used several estimation techniques. The idea is novel, and they use an interesting approach to achieve the research objective. The article contributes to the literature; most sections are very well written. However, the following minor modifications will improve the quality of the article:
1. Check that the acronyms are consistent throughout the document.
2. Please improve quality of the figures.
3. Please provide the limitations of the study, as well as the future directions of research.
4. The sentence structure, grammatical issues and spell check is required to avoid errors in the manuscript.
5. Authors should improve the contribution in the introduction.
6. Authors should proofread their work and check for possible typos and language mistakes.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish can be improved
Author Response
We are thankful to the reviewer for appreciating the manuscript and the comments. We considered almost all comments. A brief response is attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe impression is that the authors are more comfortable with statistics and models than agronomy or development. I find the abstract weak: from the title I expect to see a clear picture of (a) how the climate is changing [for example your first sentence in 4.1 would be most valuable here!] (b) what's happening to yields [broadly and how crops differ] (c) a strong recommendation. The latter (last sentence) is weak. Please clear the abstract of statistical jargon. You also need to tell us the geographical relevance of your study more precisely than you do. Also, give us botanical names for your crops (in a table, I suggest). Guinea corn? Elsewhere you talk of sorghum...are you differentiating the two? Check with your editor about how to use references. For example I doubt you should be saying "[11-12] reported that....". How about a simple summary chart of rainfall/ temperature/ population? Are you aware of those who are trumpeting recovery of farming resilience to the "farmer managed natural regeneration" of the agroforestry parklands across the zone? I am surprised not to see mention of that. Related to this: which "modern water and soil (sic) conservation practices" are you talking about? Or perhaps you mean FMNR? Table 1: Am I missing something but have you left out rainfall and climate data? Your concluding sentence is too vague. BUT you have a solid core of good and useful material that will benefit from better presentation and interpretation. Please think carefully and put yourselves in the shoes of someone – a decision maker perhaps in these countries that could benefit from your scientific wisdom - who is not a statistician and would like to be informed and to receive guidance. Good luck!
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish appears good at first sight but in fact plenty of small errors/ non-English phrases and words. A light edit required.
Author Response
We are thankful to the reviewer for appreciating the manuscript and the comments. We considered almost all comments. A brief response is attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReviewer 3 RESPONSES SECOND ROUND
“The impression is that the authors are more comfortable with statistics and models than agronomy or development. I find the abstract weak: from the title I expect to see a clear picture of (a) how the climate is changing [for example your first sentence in 4.1 would be most valuable here!] (b) what's happening to yields [broadly and how crops differ] (c) a strong recommendation. The latter (last sentence) is weak. Please clear the abstract of statistical jargon. You also need to tell us the geographical relevance of your study more precisely than you do.”
Response: we are thankful to the reviewer comments and useful suggestions. We removed the statistical jargon from the abstract.
REVIEWER - OK
“Also, give us botanical names for your crops (in a table, I suggest). Guinea corn? Elsewhere you talk of white and red sorghum...are you differentiating the two?”
REVIEWER: PLEASE RESPOND BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN BY "All crop names are consistent in the manuscript". AND YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED MY QUESTION WHAT ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN? HOW ARE YOU DISTINGUISHING WHITE SORGHUM/ RED SORGHUM AND GUINEA CORN?
Check with your editor about how to use references. For example I doubt you should be saying "[11-12] reported that....".
Response: thank you. The format of the reference list is in line to the guidelines of the journal.
REVIEWER - OK THEN PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK WITH YOUR EDITOR
How about a simple summary chart of rainfall/ temperature/ population?
REVIEWER: RESPONSE? ACTION TAKEN?
Are you aware of those who are trumpeting recovery of farming resilience to the "farmer managed natural regeneration" of the agroforestry parklands across the zone? I am surprised not to see mention of that.
REVIEWER: RESPONSE? ACTION TAKEN?
Related to this: which "modern water and soil (sic) conservation practices" are you talking about? Or perhaps you mean FMNR?
REVIEWER: RESPONSE? ACTION TAKEN?
Table 1: Am I missing something but have you left out rainfall and climate data?
REVIEWER: RESPONSE? ACTION TAKEN?
Your concluding sentence is too vague. BUT you have a solid core of good and useful material that will benefit from better presentation and interpretation. Please think carefully and put yourselves in the shoes of someone – a decision maker perhaps in these countries that could benefit from your scientific wisdom - who is not a statistician and would like to be informed and to receive guidance. Good luck!
Response: we are thankful for the comments.
REVIEWER - THANKS ARE APPRECIATED BUT WHAT SPECIFIC ACTION HAVE YOU TAKEN ?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
A light edit required.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, a point-by-point response is attached to this brief text.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
