Views of Farmers and Other Agri-Food Stakeholders on Generic Skills for Transitioning toward Sustainable Food Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract is not self-explanatory. Introduction fails to present the research gaps identified in the literature. The sustainable development definition and the goals set by UN are missing from the review. Also it is not clear what are the skills and competencies important for sustainable development. Material and methods mentioned a project deliverable, but the statistical analysis does not fit a research paper. The list of skills and competencies introduced in the questionnaire is not clear (table 2 is confusing). The authors use in the analysis partial responses without explaining the possible biases induced by such an approach.  

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your work. We answered each point below.

Abstract is not self-explanatory. --> improved

Introduction fails to present the research gaps identified in the literature.The sustainable development definition and the goals set by UN are missing from the review. --> Explanation of Sustainable Food systems is added in Introduction as well as explanation of sustainable agriculture. The paper is focused on Quality Education (SDG4, not all SDGs set by the UN),  this is also added in Introduction.

Also it is not clear what are the skills and competencies important for sustainable development. --> results of the stakeholders’ evaluation (skills and competencies highly evaluated by the stakeholders) are provided in the first paragraph of Discussion.

Material and methods mentioned a project deliverable, but the statistical analysis does not fit a research paper. --> The Project Deliverable was a starting point of this research, it contains skill datasets already defined. Explanation of used Methodology was improved.

The list of skills and competencies introduced in the questionnaire is not clear (table 2 is confusing). --> Skills and competences introduced in the questionnaire are provided in Annex 1. There is a list of open ended questions (responses were analyzed qualitatively and 9 skill datasets came out) and list of skills for Likert scale evaluation (quantitative analysis was used for received evaluations). Then, both these lists of skills were compared (comparison was provided in Table 2) in order to see together quantitative and qualitative parts.

The authors use in the analysis partial responses without explaining the possible biases induced by such an approach. --> The responses were received in 13 languages (English, French, Swedish, Danish, German, Norway, Greek, Romanian, Italian, Czech, Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), Malayalam (One languages in India), Amharic (Ethiopian)), and later were translated in English. The responses varied from one word (only skill or competence) to a phrase. Several examples of responses are provided in Discussion (section 4.2). In order to decrease biases and subjectivity, the responses were coded by two researchers and checked after, 9 codes (7 from the Deliverable + 2 additional) were used for qualitative analysis. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The research paper entitled "Views of Farmers and Other Agri-Food Stakeholders on Generic Skills for Sustainable Food Systems" presents an important and hot topic; it enables the understanding of the current and future agriculture field needs and the molding of new policies and educational programs for this sector. Methods are well explained and the results and discussion are clearly presented and supported by the data. However, some changes are necessary since the work starts from the assumption that agriculture is run in a sustainable way and that every participant understands the concept. On the contrary, this expression is over-used and became a hype word incorporated in contemporary business and research domains. We all became to know how good is to hear it without thinking of its exact meaning.

1. It would be interesting to see how different the understanding of the necessary skills (now and in the future) is between the students and farmers since the former can not really know the everyday demands of the actual job. In the presented analysis, they are pretty indistinguishable. 

2. I propose a slight change in the title. The last part mentioning "Sustainable Food Systems" is not clear enough and should be specified/changed.

3. Sustainable development of the agri-food systems (agriculture and food processing?) should be explained. The current production of food is mainly not sustainable. So, was it clear to all the participants what that term means? Many countries will not be able to introduce this kind of production for at least one to two decades, especially out of the EU. The discussion of this problem should be added in the introduction and clarified.

Also, not all agri-production in the future will be sustainable.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions and questions. I would like to answer below:

 It would be interesting to see how different the understanding of the necessary skills (now and in the future) is between the students and farmers since the farmer can not really know the everyday demands of the actual job. In the presented analysis, they are pretty indistinguishable. --> Agricultural students, farmers and advisors are considered as main target group for Nextfood project, that is why we analysed them together as one group of the stakeholders.  We mentioned this your suggestion as future research (at the end of Conclusion section).

2. I propose a slight change in the title. The last part mentioning "Sustainable Food Systems" is not clear enough and should be specified/changed --> The concept of Sustainable Food Systems as well as Sustainable agriculture was explained at the beginning of Introduction.

3. Sustainable development of the agri-food systems (agriculture and food processing?) should be explained. The current production of food is mainly not sustainable. So, was it clear to all the participants what that term means? Many countries will not be able to introduce this kind of production for at least one to two decades, especially out of the EU. The discussion of this problem should be added in the introduction and clarified --> already added and explained in Introduction

Reviewer 3 Report

It is acknowledged that the authors put a lot of effort into doing this research. In my opinion, despite the efforts made, the article has serious shortcomings and errors that make it unacceptable at this point. The authors should repeat the statistical analysis using the data currently available and update the manuscript taking the following factors into account:

1.       The problem is not clearly stated and its dimensions are not adequately covered. Here, you must provide evidence to describe the issue. Why do you think that the agri-food system stakeholders are unaware about sustainable food systems? How do you know that each of these stakeholders needs to learn new skills on sustainability?

2.       The introduction is short, and you failed to mention how you came by the new skill set you stated was required for running a sustainable agricultural system. How did you discover these skills? The method?

3.        You used a causal model to process the data, despite the fact that the project's title refers to an explanatory study, which led to a questionable results section .

4.        This research's central problem arises from the choice of statistical techniques that are inappropriate for the study. You have to use the proper techniques to do the analysis again.

5.        How can you be certain that the target group's respondents have the proper understanding of the sustainability of food systems to be a credible source of data collection?

6.        Several other comments that have been brought up in the text also need to be addressed.

Good Luck

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thanks a lot for your detailed comments. They help us to improve our paper. 

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

my comments on the manuscript are

1. Keywords section should be different from title. The first letter of keywords must be capital

2. In Discussion section there are not references. Please compare the results with other studies and researches

3. line 131 use number for the reference

4.  line 433  correct: Orwin and Poots [number of reference] instead of Orwin and Poots (2015)

5. line 434 use number for the reference

6. lines 449-450 correct as in comment 4

7. use more references in Discussion section

8. Correct the rereferences according to the journal instruction

9. Big sentences need to break to smaller ones, to be more convenient to the reader.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for the review and for your suggestions. We followed them. Kindly find below our responses point by point and attached new version of the manuscript 

1. Keywords section should be different from title. The first letter of keywords must be capital --> all keywords are corrected

2. In Discussion section there are not references. Please compare the results with other studies and researches --> references are added to Discussion

3. line 131 use number for the reference --> corrected

4.  line 433  correct: Orwin and Poots [number of reference] instead of Orwin and Poots (2015) --> corrected as was suggested

 5. line 434 use number for the reference --> corrected

6. lines 449-450 correct as in comment 4 --> corrected

7. use more references in Discussion section --> references are added to Discussion

8. Correct the references according to the journal instruction --> corrected

9. Big sentences need to break to smaller ones, to be more convenient to the reader. --> Some sentences were corrected

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I went through your modifications on the paper which has improved it a lot. Despite your efforts to modify the paper, I think you need to more justify the statement of the problem in the introduction part by adding relevant information and more extensive literature review. you need to justify this issue by more empirical evidence. The information about using the present statistical method is not convincing. You may to provide more evidence and reasons for that.

Regards.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thanks for your work done and for your comments. Our response on your suggestions is below:

I think you need to more justify the statement of the problem in the introduction part by adding relevant information and more extensive literature review. you need to justify this issue by more empirical evidence. --> The Introduction was improved, and more relevant papers were added in order to explain better the problem and existing research gaps. Furthermore, we improved Discussion (sections 4.1 and 4.2). 

 

The information about using the present statistical method is not convincing. You may to provide more evidence and reasons for that --> Section 2.2.1 "Quantitative data analysis" was improved, references were added.

 

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

congratulate for the good work.

Best Regards

Elpiniki Skoufogianni

Author Response

Thanks a lot!

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

your attempts have improved the manuscript and is now acceptable.