Hierarchical Linkage between the Basic Characteristics of Smallholders and Technology Awareness Determines Small-Holders’ Willingness to Adopt Green Production Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the abstract, you should precisely state what the goal of the work was, briefly present the methods, and before stating the more important results.

Therefore, reformulate the following sentence in a way that better reflects the aim of the work (see the last paragraph from the Introduction).

"Therefore, elucidating the relationship between different influencing factors is important to understand smallholder farmers' willingness to adopt green production technologies."

Furthermore, what methods were applied to present the data from the survey questionnaire to the scientific and general public. Before the sentence "Our results revealed that...", precisely state the methods, which were applied without additional description, because it is about standard scientific methods.

The discussion of the results relies excessively on secondary data, and the explanation of the results is modest. Could the discussion be improved a bit?

Format references correctly, e.g.

- mark the year in bold, name of the magazine in italics, abbreviated name of the magazine

Good luck!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Main comments 

1.       The title of this study needs to be readjusted to really stand as an appropriate title. I will like to suggest this:  Smallholders’ characteristics, Technology Awareness, and Willingness-to-adopt Green Production Technology in China. In addition, the title should also reflect the area of study.

2.      I think the definition of ‘green agriculture’ or a brief description of what it entails should appear in the abstract since that is the first ‘entry’ into the paper. This enables the reader to understand the concept from the beginning.

3.      Under the introduction, page 1, first paragraph, lines 40-43 the authors stated that ‘With the rise of the “Green Revolution” in recent decades, agricultural productivity significantly improved, and the large-scale promotion of green production technologies in agriculture has played an important role in solving the global food security problem 42 [1].’ With this statement, are the authors referring to ‘improved agriculture technologies’ as have been used by many researchers for decades, or does the name ‘green technologies’ implies something different? If ‘green technologies’ mean something different, then the authors need to clearly explain it. Although the authors tried to define ‘green technologies, I seem not to clearly see how these technologies are different from the commonly known improved agricultural technologies-both improved seeds and practices.

4.      The introduction section is a bit confusing and did not reveal a clear meaning of the focus of the manuscript. It is not clear what the authors are trying to do in this manuscript. The problem statement and justifications are still hidden and need to be made explicit. The condition under which the farmers were exposed to the ‘green technologies’ is not stated. For instance, was there a project that disseminated the technologies to the farmers or did the farmers have access to the ‘green technologies? The introduction contains repetitive statements and thus is unnecessarily long and should be streamlined.

5.      What informed the selection of 16 provinces and the provinces selected? Where these provinces are selected randomly or purposively. The responses to these questions are very important for a standard sampling framework.

6.      What is the actual sample size used for this study? Under the abstract, lines 20-21, the authors stated that ‘To clarify this issue, a survey covering 16 provinces 709 smallholders. Meanwhile, page 3, under section 2, materials and methods, lines 131-133, the authors stated that ‘the After eliminating invalid samples, we finally obtained 1102 valid samples, which laid a better data foundation for reflecting the overall situation of small farmers nationwide’.

7.      The results presented in Table 2, page 8 show the results of the correlation. I hope the authors are quite aware that correlation does not imply causality.  And just for clarity…. Do the correlation values present here-lines 268-272 represent strong or weak correlation? ‘In technology awareness, awareness of production technology and expected technology benefits were positively correlated with willingness to adopt green production technology at the 0.05 level. Awareness of production technology and expected technology 270 benefits were positively correlated with the intensity of willingness to adopt green pro- 271 duction technology at 0.001 and 0.01 levels, respectively.

8.      Figure three is very difficult to read and should be adjusted. I will also suggest that these results be presented in Tabular form, instead of in figures for good readability.

Minor comments 

1. The abstract is too long. The results need to be represented in a more concise manner.

2. The authors do not include the acronyms of the ‘interpretative structural modeling’ (ISM) model in the keywords.

3. On page 2, the second paragraph, lines 68-69 ‘ For example, changing smallholders decision on food  crop ensity’ the word ensity seems to be misspelled and should be checked. It could either be an entity or density...

4. In Table 2, what are the values in parentheses?

5. Figure 4, should be enlarged to make it readable.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Interesting research question with a valid and robust approach.

I have only a few concerns:

- the representativeness of the sample should be described.

- in subchapter 3.5 the description of the pathway analysis is hard to follow, it should rather be illustrated with figure(s).

- the conclusion part must be improved, special attention given to policy implications based on the results of the survey.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The objective of this study is quite clear. However, it would be better if the authors could provide the research question. Therefore the readers could easily understand that the study's purpose can answer the research question.

In terms of the empirical gap, this study is quite clear. However, the author needs to discuss more theoretical gaps, particularly in technological adoption theory.

Please add the following references to enhance your theoretical background:

Najib, M., Fahma, F., Abror, A., & Suhartanto, D. (2022). Organizational Capability, Market Perspective, and Green Innovation Adoption: Insight From Indonesian Food Processing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 32(2), 51–66.

Xia, D., Chen, W., Gao, Q., Zhang, R., Zhang, Y. (2021) Research on Enterprises’ Intention to Adopt Green Technology Imposed by Environmental Regulations with Perspective of State Ownership. Sustainability, 13, 1368.

Did you develop your questionnaire by yourself? Or have you just adopted from others? If you develop your questioner, please explain the process of questioner development. Also, please explain the validity and reliability test!

In the result section, please explain in more detail the respondent's profile. It would be better if the authors could compare the respondent and farmer profiles in the research area.

Is there any correlation between the respondent profile and willingness to adopt green production technology?

The authors should discuss in more detail the implication of the result of ISM analysis. This study also needs to provide a clear policy recommendation.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised manuscript has answered all my questions.