Technological Heterogeneity in Pig Farming: A Metafrontier Approach—Perspectives from Hungary and Poland
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper analyses the evolution of pig sector in Poland and Hungary after the changing of the political and socio-economical system and the consequent situation in pig sector in these countries. The paper is interesting and uses an adequate econometric approach. I would have few minor suggestions:
l.54; which is the basis for...
l. 64; ... breeding of different pig genotypes...( pig-Sus scrofa is species)
Table 1: first line, add word pi (pig production value ...)
l.89; replace the word "quadrupled" (e.g. 4-times or by factor 4x)
l.103; please try to be more clear about what is meant by "dualistic" nature of agriculture
l. 116; Adapting the facilities (buildings, equipment, herd) and competencies to piglet production is a difficult task, thus many small farmers were not interested or able to adopt such specialisation.
l. 119; common EU market
l. 130; ...with consumers' dietary changes...
l.138; In summary, the results...
l. 148; We used ... (a general remark - use the past tense instead of present tense when describing the methodology and results of this paper)
l. 193; please clarify/rephrase (N denotes farms at time)
l. 271-273; please clarify/rephrase this part
l.340; ...was to measure...; idem l. 341 (we took)
l. 344; ...during the period analysed.
l.371; explain abbreviation TE
Author Response
We sincerely thank you for reading our article and the accurate comments made in your review. Their inclusion significantly improves the quality of the text. In particular:
- we have included in the text the corrections suggested in the lines 54, 64, 89, 116, 119, 130, 138, 193, 340, 344 and Table 1.,
- we explained in line 103 term “dualistic” – “i.e. coexistence of large, commercial farms alongside small-scale subsistence farms”
- we change the tense used in results description to the past
- in line 193 we explained that “i = 1, 2, …, N denotes N farms at time t”
- in line 271-273 we added explanation of returns to scale: “which informs about the proportionality of changes in output after the amounts of all inputs in production have been changed by the same factor.” and added missing information that “This value is similar for both countries, and higher than 1, what would imply increasing returns to scale.”
- we explained TE in line 371 as technical efficiency
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presents an overall interesting study of pig production in Poland and Hungary, but some issues need to be clarified
- The introduction needs to explain better why these two countries were chosen for the study. There seem to be very significant differences in the structure of the sector between these two countries. Also the 1st paragraph is very big and a little confusing after l. 33
- A thorough proofreading by the authors will reveal that there are some typos and some words used in a wrong way (e.g. "species" in l. 64 should be "breeds")
- Table 1 presents some contradicting indicators (within countries and between countries) that need to be discussed. Eg it seems that trade balance is negative although food supply is increasing; prices and food supply are increasing but production value is diminished in Hungary and increased in a lower percentage in Poland. These should be presented in a more straightforward way, also in order to support the results and discussion of Table 4 (which are actually very interesting)
- In l. 213 describe the variables (see comment below)
- The legend in Table 2 is wrong (e.g. it implies that output is an explanatory variable) and does not explain the variables in a straightforward way
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We sincerely thank you for reading our article and the accurate comments made in your review. Their inclusion significantly improves the quality of the text. In particular:
- in the introduction we provide a number of arguments for the selection of Hungary and Poland for comparison, in particular: a) dominant role of the pork meat in the cuisine of both countries; b) relatively high share of pork production in overall value of agricultural production; c) common communist past, which distinguish these countries from other EU Member states where pork production is similarly important; d) decline of the pork production sector after EU accession in both countries e) results of other studies which indicate agricultural sector in Hungary and Poland as closest matches among EU countries.
- to improve the clarity of the text we have divided the first paragraph into three.
- text has been proofread and identified mistakes and typos corrected
- we explain the issue of negative trade balance and increasing food supply in the following way “When it comes to trade in pork, the balance was generally maintained in the case of Hungary, while Poland became a net importer – mainly due to the weak international competitiveness of polish pork farms, which resulted in the substitution of domestic production with imports [17]. This phenomenon is particularly significant in relation to piglet supply [18]. Among other reasons for the decline in pork production in Poland we can mention the trade embargo imposed by Russia, and the spread of African swine fewer (ASF).”
- diminished value of production, in the situation of stable prices in Hungary is explained be the decrease in the production volume, in particular: “Because of the common EU market, the proportion of cheap imported pigs increased, depressing domestic prices and increasing production-related losses. Strict environmental and animal welfare requirements also represented a big burden for farmers in terms of cost structure. The price boom of 2008 also affected the Hungarian pig sector negatively because most farmers had no cropland for growing feed. Finally, those farms which had arable land for feed growing could count on a secure income from the latter due to the Single Area Payment Scheme and a secure cereal market; the risky market situation and cost of investment required to maintain competitiveness resulted in many pig keeping farms ceasing production.”
- we added description of the variables under equation (4)
- we corrected table 2. by adding FADN codes, explained under the table, to variable names.
