Impacts of Green Production Behaviors on the Income Effect of Rice Farmers from the Perspective of Outsourcing Services: Evidence from the Rice Region in Northwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After carefully reading the manuscript, I feel that the paper topic is interesting. Still, I found that the manuscript does not meet the minimum requirements for publication in a high-ranked journal like Agriculture.

However, it is insufficient in terms of addressing new theoretical arguments, explaining generic relevance, presenting convincible methods and data, containing sufficient contributions to the new body of global knowledge from the international perspective, and discussing implications for development policies and strategies beyond the local cases. 

 

 

Abstract

The abstract should be revised to reveal the knowledge gap and/ or research problem rather than the research process in the current format. Moreover, the contribution to the study to existing knowledge must be revealed in the abstract.

 

Literature review

The review of the body of literature is still incomplete. While the authors discussed the theory of economic man, they have missed addressing the suitability of the theory and indicating a conceptual model including the study variables regarding the rice farmers' AGP behaviors on their income effects from the perspective of outsourcing services. However, the theory of economic man refers to an idealized person who acts rationally, with perfect knowledge, and who seeks to maximize personal utility or satisfaction, but this study didn’t consider the perfect knowledge variable.

 

Methods

The research method description is too general. The authors failed to justify why this method was employed and did not address its suitability with the study objectives.

The authors indicated the theoretical model of the study in figure 1, but the research variables and the relationship among the variables have been missed in the current format.

There is no information on how the instrument for primary data collection has been designed or developed. A clear explanation is needed for the instrument design or development. Furthermore, the employed instrument must be supported by suitable references and evidence if it has been developed.

On the other hand, there is no explanation regarding the sample size and sample method. Moreover, the authors need to provide clear discussions for the following questions in the “materials and methods” section

How did you validate the collected data? 

How was reliability measured in the collected data?

As I see the questions are unanswered in the current format

 

 

Analysis

This section needs to be reorganized to satisfy the research aim. In the current format, the collected data is not convincingly analyzed. Moreover, the analysis section must answer the study hypothesis or research question(s) and the results must be supported by the existing body of knowledge.

 

Discussion and Conclusion:

This part is essential for a high-quality paper. It is suggested that the author re-organize this part. The current discussion/conclusion is not comprehensive, and it is not convincing enough to implicate the research findings beyond the local case.

In addition, please make sure the conclusions section underscores the scientific value-added of the paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results from an international perspective.

Generally, authors should enhance the manuscript's contributions, limitations, and the applicability of their findings/results and future study in this session.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors investigated the impact of practicing agricultural green production by rice farmers on their income effect via outsourcing services using the endogenous switching model. The work is well structured and properly written with clear objectives. However, authors should address the following comments to further improve the manuscript.

Line 68: replace “…farmers to abuse pesticides…” by “…farmers against the pesticide abuse…”

The background information on the endogenous switching model is missing. I suggest authors should introduce this under the introduction section or theoretical framework and state the reasons why it is applicable in their study.

Line 188: located

Line 192: reasons

Line 228: candidates

Authors should kindly check the manuscript again to make correction on the grammatical and typographical errors

 

Table 4. Why are the variables divided into two sections?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

 

In the presented manuscript authors have explored the agriculture green production practices by considering perspective of outsourcing services. Furthermore, authors assessed the economic perspectives bundled with the adoption of green production behaviours. For the same, survey based insights are incorporated. Some of the suggestions to the authors are:

ú  In the introduction section of the manuscript, research questions need to be framed and contribution needs to be briefed.

ú  In figure 1 of the manuscript it seems that in the outsourcing services allied with the pesticide, weeding, harvesting are considered. But, no perspective of seed, sowing and selling based service are detailed in manuscript. It is advised to look into the same, for justifying the whole farming process outsourcing.

ú  In the table 1, coefficient of variation needs to be added for enhancing the variation in percentages in descriptive statistics.

ú  In the sub-section 3.3.1 Econometric model is detailed. For the better understanding of the same assumptions needs to be detailed, considered for the development of model.

ú  For the better understanding of the results, some graphs depicting the statistics outcomes as a one sight view needs to be plotted.  It should the results of the analysis for ease of visualisation.

 

ú  Work implication needs to be steered towards the industrial implication as it solely focuses on government policies as of now. 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

After carefully reading the revised manuscript, I found that the revision was greatly improved. I have no more questions.

 

Congratulations!