Land Tenure Insecurity Constrains Cropping System Investment in the Jordan Valley of the West Bank
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I also consider the direct practical output of the article, which is understandable to policymakers, to be important.
However, there are several things need to be clarified.
Main comment: Relations among governorate - land tenure status - cropping system and farm income are described and clearly justified; however there it´s not entirely clear to me the selection of particular crops for the open field, greenhouse and perennial in relation to land tenure. As mentioned at the page 3, there are typical crops for each of the cropping system; e.g. for open field squash, eggplant; for greenhouse tomato, cucumber and for perennial guavas and citrus fruits; and my question is:
Isn´t there a lower income from open fields mainly due to the choice of crops that simply belong to this cropping system (faba beans, maize, eggplant etc. and cannot be grown e.g. in a greenhouses? So if the land tenure "rent" is the least effective and deepens poverty, isn't it primarily a consequence of growing crops of open fields that simply have to show such income without subsidies? And will there not be a shortage of these crops on the market in the case of a potential switch to other types of land tenure own and sharecropping with dominant cropping systems greenhouse and perennial?
Some minor comments:
Page 4 149-151: “The villages for survey were selected in consultation with local key stakeholders in order to capture the greatest heterogeneity for small scale farming in the Jordan Valley of the West Bank”.
How the local key stakeholders were selected? What were the main criteria for selection?
Page 4, 170-171: “25 key stakeholders from different governmental and civil society institutions were interviewed”
The same as a previous question: Who were the local key stakeholders and how they were selected?
Page 6, 213-215 Adding percentages in parentheses will give us a better idea of the proportion of each parameter.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I also consider the direct practical output of the article, which is understandable to policymakers, to be important.
However, there are several things need to be clarified.
Main comment: Relations among governorate - land tenure status - cropping system and farm income are described and clearly justified; however there it´s not entirely clear to me the selection of particular crops for the open field, greenhouse and perennial in relation to land tenure. As mentioned at the page 3, there are typical crops for each of the cropping system; e.g. for open field squash, eggplant; for greenhouse tomato, cucumber and for perennial guavas and citrus fruits; and my question is:
Isn´t there a lower income from open fields mainly due to the choice of crops that simply belong to this cropping system (faba beans, maize, eggplant etc. and cannot be grown e.g. in a greenhouses? So if the land tenure "rent" is the least effective and deepens poverty, isn't it primarily a consequence of growing crops of open fields that simply have to show such income without subsidies? And will there not be a shortage of these crops on the market in the case of a potential switch to other types of land tenure own and sharecropping with dominant cropping systems greenhouse and perennial?
- Thank you for raising this point. Indeed, it is likely that the association between cropping system and crop value is partly responsible for the differences observed in annual farm income among cropping systems. We have now made this point explicit on lines 390-394. We have also raised the importance of different cropping systems and potential associations with economic opportunities presented by greater rural mobility (lines 432-434).
Some minor comments:
Page 4 149-151: “The villages for survey were selected in consultation with local key stakeholders in order to capture the greatest heterogeneity for small scale farming in the Jordan Valley of the West Bank”.
How the local key stakeholders were selected? What were the main criteria for selection?
- Thank you for pointing this out. We have now clarified this point on lines 165-170.
Page 4, 170-171: “25 key stakeholders from different governmental and civil society institutions were interviewed”
The same as a previous question: Who were the local key stakeholders and how they were selected?
- Thank you for pointing this out. We have now clarified this point on lines 188-196.
Page 6, 213-215 Adding percentages in parentheses will give us a better idea of the proportion of each parameter.
- The percentages have now been added (lines 237-242).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I really found this paper very interesting to read, also because it investigates a theme in a region that is not often investigated. The issue of agricultural poverty connected to small farms and land tenure is very relevant in the Mediterranean region and this paper produces interesting and not so expected results, such as the relative better performance of perennial crops compared to open fields in terms of produced income, or the role of sharecropping in the overall agricultural economy.
For this reason, my first suggestion is to stress even more these results, possibily comparing them to other results in the literature on small farms in mediterranean regions.
Other issues I would suggest are:
to provide more information about poverty in non-rural areas, in order to compare the situation presented for the agricultural-rural areas.
to give some information about possible policies supporting access to land, rural development and farm investments for small farm: are there any?
to provide some information about possible off-farm (and on-farm too) income diversification and pluriactivity which can be a relevant source of living for poor farmers and also a source of income integration. Having information on other possible source of income for the agricultural household could make quite a difference, and some cropping system might encourage pluricactivity more than others (perennial for example).
All the figure headlines need rewriting. I would not put descriptions and statistical information in there. Al that can be moved in the main text or in a footnote.
Author Response
I really found this paper very interesting to read, also because it investigates a theme in a region that is not often investigated. The issue of agricultural poverty connected to small farms and land tenure is very relevant in the Mediterranean region and this paper produces interesting and not so expected results, such as the relative better performance of perennial crops compared to open fields in terms of produced income, or the role of sharecropping in the overall agricultural economy.
For this reason, my first suggestion is to stress even more these results, possibily comparing them to other results in the literature on small farms in mediterranean regions.
- Thank you for these kind comments. We have tried to strengthen the comparisons and references to small scale farming systems in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries (lines 44-46, 102-111, 424-427).Unfortunately, as we now explicitly state with regard to the rationale of the research, an important gap in the research literature remains for studies addressing the relationship between land tenure and opportunities for greater agricultural development in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries (lines 102-111). Hopefully, this manuscript will help contribute to filling some of this gap.
Other issues I would suggest are:
to provide more information about poverty in non-rural areas, in order to compare the situation presented for the agricultural-rural areas.
- Thank you for raising this point. We have now included a reference to poverty in urban areas compared to rural areas on lines 35-38 and 43-46.
to give some information about possible policies supporting access to land, rural development and farm investments for small farm: are there any?
- Thank you for making this suggestion. We have now discussed this in more depth on lines 424-437.
to provide some information about possible off-farm (and on-farm too) income diversification and pluriactivity which can be a relevant source of living for poor farmers and also a source of income integration. Having information on other possible source of income for the agricultural household could make quite a difference, and some cropping system might encourage pluricactivity more than others (perennial for example).
- Thank you for making this suggestion. We have now elaborated more on the potential for livelihood diversification and its relationship with cropping systems (lines 435-437)
All the figure headlines need rewriting. I would not put descriptions and statistical information in there. All that can be moved in the main text or in a footnote.
- Thank you for making this suggestion. We have adapted the figure and table headings as appropriate, to avoid overloading the headings with too much information.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
- I believe that the topic of the paper tackles some very interesting issues about poverty and inequality, looking at differences in the cropping system and observing that there exists a high correlation with the land tenure status.
- The paper is well-written and almost complete in all parts.
- My only suggestion would be to provide a new section (related literature) trying to compare the previous contribution in the literature compared to this manuscript. This section should underline the pros and cons of this approach compared to others.
- In any case, the introduction should better discuss the motivation of the analysis and the anecdotal evidence proposed and justify the new approach in this paper.
Author Response
I believe that the topic of the paper tackles some very interesting issues about poverty and inequality, looking at differences in the cropping system and observing that there exists a high correlation with the land tenure status.
The paper is well-written and almost complete in all parts.
My only suggestion would be to provide a new section (related literature) trying to compare the previous contribution in the literature compared to this manuscript. This section should underline the pros and cons of this approach compared to others.
In any case, the introduction should better discuss the motivation of the analysis and the anecdotal evidence proposed and justify the new approach in this paper.
- Thank you for these positive comments. We have adapted the Introduction to highlight better the section relating to previous studies and research. We have now included a sub-heading indicating where the section relating to past research begins (line 64). We have also introduced more detailed information from the literature regarding comparisons to other south and eastern Mediterranean countries (lines 43-46). We have also written a new paragraph better explaining the motivation for the research in connection to the local context and the gap in the global research literature (lines 102-112). Finally, we have also introduced some more text to explain how and why the research adopts a novel step to the methodology beyond the normal approach of household surveys (lines 121-126).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
