Do Structures Matter in the Process of Sustainable Intensification? A Case Study of Agriculture in the European Union Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study Do structures matter in the process of sustainable intensification? A case study of agriculture in the European Union countries", authors attempted an interesting way of presentation on sustainable intensification structural impacts on total factor productivity in EU member countries. This study outcomes will definitely contribute in the future policies and designing of the development projects for rural economies towards sustainable intensification. The results clearly indicate that the outcomes of social and economical are highly correlated but when it combined with environmental sustainability, outcomes showed clear differences with weak relationship with economic and social. 

1. I found significant error in text and repetition of the words throughout the manuscript, and this must be taken care while revising the manuscript.
2. Authors over used/ everywhere "We" throughout the manuscript, this must be avoided and sentence should connect with direct point of message. No need to mentioned "We" as this is understood as done by all co-authors.  
3. The conclusion section is too much wordy which disconnect the important messages and findings, I must suggest to highlight only the important findings and this should be reduced by 50% words. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We addressed your remarks in the following way:

• I found significant error in text and repetition of the words throughout the manuscript, and this must be taken care while revising the manuscript.
  A proofreading for the text has been conducted.
• Authors over used/ everywhere "We" throughout the manuscript, this must be avoided and sentence should connect with direct point of message. No need to mentioned "We" as this is understood as done by all co-authors.
  As a part of proofreading we replaced the most of personal forms with a passive voice.
• The conclusion section is too much wordy which disconnect the important messages and findings, I must suggest to highlight only the important findings and this should be reduced by 50% words.
  We extracted discussion from the conclusions and presented it as a separate part of the paper and shortened the conclusions part. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The chosen topic is of high relevance. It is clear that, on the one hand, we need to see agriculture as a food-producing sector and a supply to the world, and on the other hand, we have limited resources to maximize the conservation and efficiency of sustainable agricultural intensification. The research done is comprehensive and interesting.

However, there are some questions and observations.

The first special focus is on Figure 1, in which the social and environmental dimensions are intertwined, but the factors are not systematically grouped, leading to the question of better structuring and disclosure of impacts. I would suggest redoing and clarifying it.

Missing six control variables, used for robustness check, justification and clarification.

The results could be more expressive and more information about it provided. The discussion could be a separate part. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We addressed your remarks in the following way:

• The first special focus is on Figure 1, in which the social and environmental dimensions are intertwined, but the factors are not systematically grouped, leading to the question of better structuring and disclosure of impacts. I would suggest redoing and clarifying it.
  Figure was improved to present only economic and environmental dimension. Theoretical impact on social dimension is described now in a separate paragraph.
• Missing six control variables, used for robustness check, justification and clarification.
  Addition of the control variables is explained in lines 140-173
• The results could be more expressive and more information about it provided. The discussion could be a separate part.
  We extracted discussion from the conclusions and presented it as a separate part of the paper and shortened the conclusions part.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper addresses the issue of sustainable intensification in European agriculture using indices developed from official statistical data.

The topic is topical with regard to the increasing food needs of the world population (which is growing), climate change (especially rising air temperatures, unpredictability of the climate and increase in extreme weather events), global food crises, etc. 

The paper is interesting. I would only revise a few small things:

1. First of all among the different interpretations of sustainability I would say which one to choose;
2. intensification means including more knowledge and the right technology in the production process, hence "more knoledge per hectare": this indicator is missing. Explain your point of view;
3. due to the complexity of the system/socio-cultural situations, there is no single way or interpretation of sustainability. This is a limitation of the study and should be reported in the conclusions.
4. Problems and solutions must be identified for each crop or supply chain in a given environment, while the paper refers to a more general discussion. In operational reality, the need to reconcile environmental sustainability with profitability for the farm must always be taken into account first;
5. To what extent has the presence of the UK influenced your analysis?
6. In some cases you refer to 2005-2018 and in others to 2006-2018.
7. In figure 2 I expected some countries to be differently positioned in terms of SI;
8. Small and large farms, marginal and highly specialised areas: not all usable agricultural land is suitable for intensive forms of agriculture (Buckwel et al 2014 argue this strongly): this is also a limitation of the study. I would add in the appendix the replication of table 2 by main countries).

Good work

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We addressed your remarks in the following way:

• First of all among the different interpretations of sustainability I would say which one to choose
  Definition of sustainable intensification, which we follow in this paper has been provided in the first paragraph of the introduction – line 24-37.
• intensification means including more knowledge and the right technology in the production process, hence "more knoledge per hectare": this indicator is missing. Explain your point of view
  We added a direct reference to the Buckwell’s et. al. term “more knowledge per ha” in the line 35. When it comes to measuring intensification we decided to measure it through the results, which is a higher efficiency of production, not through the size the knowledge input, which itself is extremely hard to measure, especially in dynamic terms.
• due to the complexity of the system/socio-cultural situations, there is no single way or interpretation of sustainability. This is a limitation of the study and should be reported in the conclusions
  We reported limitation of our study, coming form the assumed definition of sustainability in line 598.
• Problems and solutions must be identified for each crop or supply chain in a given environment, while the paper refers to a more general discussion. In operational reality, the need to reconcile environmental sustainability with profitability for the farm must always be taken into account first;
  We added this important remark as a one of the limitations of our study (line 628-630)
• To what extent has the presence of the UK influenced your analysis?
  Our analysis was conducted for years 2005-2018, when UK was still a EU Member State, that is why it was included into analysis. It is interesting context of the research, what would be the result of UK exclusion from the sample. As it is presented in Fig. A1. any of the average levels of SI components for UK was close to one, which means that UK was far from the SI frontier. In that situation excluding UK from the sample wouldn’t influence the results of other countries significantly.
• In some cases you refer to 2005-2018 and in others to 2006-2018.
  It results from the fact that we analyse SI dynamics – TFP indices which can be calculated only starting from 2006, while we need a data for a base (2005) and current year (2006). A clarification was added in line 187.
• In figure 2 I expected some countries to be differently positioned in terms of SI.
  Due to the article’s space limitations we decided not to discuss positions of all the countries in details and focus more on structural determinants of such position, but also for us some results were surprising. We compare our results of SI assessment with earlier results in discussion part (line 499-512), where we also provide possible explanation for the differences in results.
• Small and large farms, marginal and highly specialised areas: not all usable agricultural land is suitable for intensive forms of agriculture (Buckwel et al 2014 argue this strongly): this is also a limitation of the study. I would add in the appendix the replication of table 2 by main countries).
  We added your remark as a limitation for our research with a reference to the paper which assess SI opportunities in EU (line 610-612). The idea to move downward and conduct analysis on the farm level in main countries and compare the results may be a  fruitful line for further research.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear. Authors.

The current version of the document needs to be improved. The paragraphs are very long and difficult to read. I suggest that the authors work on modifying the length of the paragraphs.
The figures need to be improved and revised have typos.
The conclusions are too long and the authors need to be more concrete and include their recommendations in a section at the end of the results and discussion.
On the other hand, it is necessary that the authors mention how this study can be applied in other regions of other continents.

I attach the document with my recommendations

greetings

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We addressed your remarks in the following way:

• The paragraphs are very long and difficult to read. I suggest that the authors work on modifying the length of the paragraphs.
  We split the longest paragraphs.
• The figures need to be improved and revised have typos.
  We added description to table 1 and checked all the figures for typos.
• The conclusions are too long and the authors need to be more concrete and include their recommendations in a section at the end of the results and discussion.
  On the other hand, it is necessary that the authors mention how this study can be applied in other regions of other continents.
  We extracted discussion from the conclusions and presented it as a separate part of the paper and shortened the conclusions part. Also limitations part was extended.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The quality of the article has improved, the authors have supplemented the article and it could now be accepted.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors

Thank you for including the suggested changes.

Regards