Pesticide Safety in Greek Plant Foods from the Consumer Perspective: The Importance of Reliable Information

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The literature survey goes back 30-40 years and covers the background for the study.

Conclusions are concise and identify channels for providing trustful information for the public that is very important for improving the general feeling concerning the positive and negative effects of the use of pesticide residues.

The results and discussion sections are too long and very difficult to follow by the readers. Trained statisticians can only interpret the reported results of the tests. The general readers of Agrochemicals are unlikely to be experts in statistics.

It would be very helpful to briefly summarize the findings of the survey in an itemized list using terms that can be understood by pesticide analysts, and regulators of the distribution, and use of pesticides and disseminate information understandable by the public.

The list may be structured according to the RQ-s.

Moreover, the limitations of the sampling design should be repeated in the conclusions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors may want to take into account the following comments in order to improve the manuscript.

1) Lines 53-54: instead «Pre and Post harvest losses have a negative impact on poverty and mal nutrition» would be better to say «Pre and Post harvest losses have a negative impact on the agricultural production».

2) Line 91. Instead ...«a sample remains compliant» would be better ..«a food sample remains compliant».

3) Line 99.   where is «EFSA and Dujardin» a reference should be inserted »EFSA [x] and Dujardin.»

4)Line 756: Instead «this study is» should be «this study was».

5)Lines 759 and 7761. The present tense and past tense were used and there is a conflict. Please use the past tense. «Half of the respondents believed...»  and « while the other half held the opposite view».

see above.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript “Pesticide safety in Greek plant foods from the consumer perspective: the importance of reliable information” submitted by Roditakis et al. provided a throughout analysis of the factors that influence consumers’ views on the safety of Greek plant-based foods, especially focused on pesticide residues. After reading the manuscript, I think the study was conducted carefully and the survey data was analyzed in detail. However, the manuscript was too tedious, with information that is not closely related to the topic. Thus, I would like to suggest the authors to reduce the redundant context, particularly in Introduction and Discussion. Another advice is to better summarize the data in more figures, for the purpose of improving readability. Finally, the manuscript was submitted to the journal Agrochemicals, but there is not too much to do with chemicals. Pesticide residue was discussed in a general manner, without any information about category and structure-activity relationship. The whole study is based on analyzing survey data, which is more like a work of social science. I doubt it would be interested to the readership of Agrochemicals.

Overall, I think it is a good study but not suitable for publication on Agrochemicals. I suggest the authors to consider other options.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

As a reviewer, I am pleased to see the comments have been considered and corresponding modifications were made. The quality of the updated manuscript was clearly improved. Therefore, I would like to endorse the publication of the current version on Agrochemicals.