Factors Influencing the Sustained Adoption of Innovative Techniques by Urban Farmers in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please find in the following my comments about the review of a manuscript under the title (Factors influencing the sustained adoption of innovative techniques by urban farmers in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo):

 

In this study, the authors try to investigate the factors influencing the sustained adoption of the motor pump and the ISFM disseminated in the promoted package.

 

Main question addressed by the research

 

This study focused to collect data from 202 vegetable farmers which was used to identify, via the Logit model, the factors influencing the sustained adoption of the motor pump and the ISFM disseminated in the promoted package.

 

 

Originality and relevance

 

§  The study is interesting for reading and relevant in the field as it discusses the Factors influencing the sustained adoption of innovative techniques by urban farmers

§  The study has moderate scientific quality.

§  The study is relevant to the scope of this journal.

§  The manuscript is clear, and relevant for the field and its presentation is fine.

 

Comments:

 

Results:

§  The title of the table should be informative and self-explanatory? Revise.

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Response 1: Les titres des tableaux suivants ont été révisés. Tableau 3 ligne 309, Tableau 4 ligne 340, Tableau 5 ligne 353, Tableau 6 ligne 382, Tableau 7 ligne 418, Tableau 8 ligne 446

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

congratulations on your article. In my opinion its clear, well written and needed for sustainable agricultural development in the DRC.

Please shorten the abstract to the necessary pieces of information that justify the research, describe the method and results briefly, as well as the conclusion. Without detailed examples.

The conclusion sounds just like the summary. Please pay more attention to the generalization of the results and the generation of new knowledge useful for the sustainable development of agriculture in DRC, maybe in Afrika in general.

Your research shows a picture of very inefficient farming with very low income. How is the place of your study on the way to the increase of productivity of DRC farmers? What they should do to improve their work?

Daily income seems to be a kind of weak factor. Have you considered relating it to the acreage of the farm? I think the factor of USD per year per ha can be better to describe the efficiency.

Also the labor force factor. We know how many persons are involved in work on a farm. But we dont know how many hours per year they work. I understand it is hard to estimate but can deliver valuabe data for framing productivity.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Response 1: The abstract is shortened to the necessary information that justifies the research (line 11 to 45);

Response 2: The conclusion is modified by giving more attention to the generalization of results, to the generation of new knowledge useful for the sustainable development of agriculture in DRC (line 609 to 661);

Response 3: Based on our results, recommendations are made to agricultural Policy-makers, development projects and farmers to increase the productivity of urban farms (line 631 to 633).

Response 4 : For more details on the low productivity of farmers, an article is in preparation. This article mobilizes the data from the exploratory survey, especially since the latter was quantitative. This paper focuses more on identifying factors that may influence farmers' sustained adoption of innovations;

Response 5 :  Data from the exploratory survey were used to determine the number of hours worked per year by urban farmers in Lubumbashi (Table 6, line 382). 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

It is interesting for readers to understand the factors governing the adoption of farming techniques. I have the following concerns.

(1) The abbreviations should be carefully prepared. The abbreviation should not be used in Abstract.

(2) The Abstract should be condensed. It is too long and I could not catch the most important findings or results from the present abstract.
(3) Section 2.5 should be reworked with a stanard equation. The present equations are difficult to understand.
(4)The results in section 3 are not impressive. Some obvious statistics should be condensed.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Response 1: Abbreviations are excluded from the abstract (line 22,35,36),

Response 2: The abstract is condensed from 420 to 339 words (line 11 to 47).

Response 3 : Section 2.5 is reworked using the standard equation used by many researchers in studies identifying the drivers of adoption of agricultural innovations via the Logit model (line 287 to 301)

Response 4 : The results in Section 3 present the descriptive statistics of the independent variables used in the model. These variables are presented in 3 tables as in the hypothesis table (Socio-demographic, economic and institutional profile variables). This will allow the reader to get an idea of the profile of the farmers whose innovation adoption factors are being studied.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx