Impact of Conservation Tillage Technology Application on Farmers’ Technical Efficiency: Evidence from China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reasons for which I asked major revision are noted below:

1. The title does not require the use of the words "Research on."
2. Have you explained how conservation tillage improves output and reduces inputs, or have you only mentioned changes in numerator and denominator values and claimed it as a mechanism?
3. The authors claimed that conservation tillage technology primarily enhances technical efficiency through two mechanisms: increasing output and reducing production expenses. This suggests that efficiency increases as output increases and input decreases. However, I believe that as farmers become more efficient in input use with technology adoption, they produce more, and their efficiency score increases. Therefore, the statement needs to be revised.
4. I hope I get the methodology correctly. The authors have estimated TE using a SFA model framework. The results of the model are missing. Moreover, hypothesis testing is required with the SFA model, which is currently missing. Since the SFA has inefficiency model, why the Tobit model was necessary? A SFA model can be used to determine the effect of adoption on technical efficiency, while ATT can be used to estimate output and technical efficiency differences between two groups.
5. Line 47 is unclear.
6. Mohanad is the first name, not the last name. The reference list should also be checked.
7. What distinguishes your research from that of Li et al. (cited in line 58)?
8. The authors claim that most research on conservation tillage technology is based on macro-level data. What are the limitations of the few studies that have used farm-level data?
9. In line 65, the authors claim that little attention has been paid to the impact of conservation tillage technology on farmers' technical efficiency. Doesn't this contradict what was stated in line 47?
10. A more detailed discussion of the "traditional methodology" and how your paper improves upon it is needed for all three points mentioned between lines 61 and 73.

 

I will not comment here.

Author Response

Dearreviewers：

Thank you for yourletter and the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Impact of Conservation Tillage Technology Application on Farmers'Technical Efficiency: Evidence fromChina”.Those comments are valuable and very helpful. We have read through comments carefully and have made corrections. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript.The responses to the reviewer's comments are marked inred and presented following（PDF）. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see my comments attached separately.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dearreviewers：

Thank you for yourletter and the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Impact of Conservation TillageTechnologyApplication on Farmers'Technical Efficiency: Evidence fromChina”.Those comments are valuable and very helpful. We have read through comments carefully and have made corrections. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript.The responses to the reviewer's comments are marked inred and presented following（pdf）.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf