Growing and Eating Food during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Farmers’ Perspectives on Local Food System Resilience to Shocks in Southern Africa and Indonesia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for this interesting and most actual research. The use of diverse research methods, provides a substantial data, and allows you to analyze and describe the target groups to provide information about similarities and differences between them. There are minor corrections that I would like you to make, to make your article even better.

You have studied the situation, resilience to the impact of Covid-19 of the smallholders in South and East Africa and Asia in the developing countries. Why those countries? What about South America? You should explain that even in the abstract.

Line 36. I assumed that the research was about farmers and not consumers. In your title you mention only the farmers. Of course the farmers are also consumers, but define this.

In your manuscript you use the nouns “farmer”, “small-scale farmer” and smallholder. At the introduction you have to precise what are you using and what does that mean in your participatory smallholders. You have mentioned that on line 258, but do it at the beginning, when you present your research plan.

You should explain the methods that you were using so that those who are not familiar with them, could follow more easily.

Go through once more your citations. Like on the line 57,58 citations 2, 3, 4, are they only for the previous sentence? Or are they for all sentences after the citation 1.

In the results the Table 1 shows no data on April week 2 in Maputo. What happened? You explained the increase of respondent.

Thank you for the discussion. There you discuss your observations, methods and results with another research. If you want to increase the value of your work, you link the results even more with existing research results.

You mention a path of actions how to increase the resilience of the smallholders to prevent impact like this to happen again. You mention very relevant actions. This is very important. Could you write couple of more sentences on this? What has to be done in these different infrastructures/cultures/societies to better their resilience and increase their self-sufficiency.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your positive and encouraging feedback. Please find our responses related to your comments.

Dear Authors,
Thank you for this interesting and most actual research. The use of diverse research methods, provides a substantial data, and allows you to analyze and describe the target groups to provide information about similarities and differences between them. There are minor corrections that I would like you to make, to make your article even better.

Thank you very much for this positive feedback and your highly valuable suggestions.

You have studied the situation, resilience to the impact of Covid-19 of the smallholders in South and East Africa and Asia in the developing countries. Why those countries? What about South America? You should explain that even in the abstract.

We relied on an existing network of research partners of the coordinating institution. We added this information to the abstract.

Line 36. I assumed that the research was about farmers and not consumers. In your title you mention only the farmers. Of course the farmers are also consumers, but define this.

Thank you, this is true and we defined it in the abstract.

In your manuscript you use the nouns “farmer”, “small-scale farmer” and smallholder. At the introduction you have to precise what are you using and what does that mean in your participatory smallholders. You have mentioned that on line 258, but do it at the beginning, when you present your research plan.

We used only the term small-scale farmer or farmer (to cut off non-essential wording). A definition was added to the introduction section.

You should explain the methods that you were using so that those who are not familiar with them, could follow more easily.

Thank you, we rephrased some sentences in the methods section to make it more
understandable. We were using a digital survey through a co-research approach, which means, that we involved small-scale farmers in all steps of the project from the design of the survey, the data collection, triangulation, and the writing process. We included a definition of the term “co-researcher”: community researcher.

Go through once more your citations. Like on the line 57,58 citations 2, 3, 4, are they only for the previous sentence? Or are they for all sentences after the citation 1.
These citations refer only to the previous sentence as per CMoS.

In the results the Table 1 shows no data on April week 2 in Maputo. What happened? You explained the increase of respondent.

We updated the text to explain that due to the governmental COVID-19 restrictions in that week, the team in Maputo was not able to coordinate data collection.

Thank you for the discussion. There you discuss your observations, methods and results with another research. If you want to increase the value of your work, you link the results even more with existing research results.
Thank you very much for this important suggestion. We linked the discussion much more to our work and gathered results.

You mention a path of actions how to increase the resilience of the smallholders to prevent impact like this to happen again. You mention very relevant actions. This is very important. Could you write couple of more sentences on this? What has to be done in these different infrastructures/cultures/societies to better their resilience and increase their self-sufficiency.
Thank you; we agree that this is an important aspect of the paper. We added some sentences by raising questions what means to build back better when we wish to foster local food systems. We argue for complementary systems, and we bring up the aspect of agency for food actors. We further argue for strong networks and actors who listen to each other; this could be emphasised in local food councils.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting and well-established study. Below are only some minor recommendations on the possible improvement of the paper:

Lines 42-44: It is recommended to use the names of countries instead of cities (or at least indicate countries along with cities)

Line 60: in many countries - it would be good to name them and provide brief summaries

Line 116: what previous projects? This is not clear.

Line 133: five regions, but four countries, right? It is a bit confusing since the author says about five regions, but provides characteristics of only four countries. It should be rephrased somehow here.

Line 165: must be 1.2.2.

Line 190: must be 1.2.3.

Line 225: must be 1.2.4.

Line 245: before moving to the methods, the author should summarize how these five regions are similar to or different from each other in terms of agricultural production, farming, COVID-19 responses, and other parameters.

Lines 257-258: is it possible to provide these questions or a questionnaire sample in the appendix? A brief explanation of why these particular questions were used would be very useful. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your positive and encouraging feedback. Please find our responses related to your comments.

This is a very interesting and well-established study. Below are only some minor
recommendations on the possible improvement of the paper:
Lines 42-44: It is recommended to use the names of countries instead of cities (or at least indicate countries along with cities)

We added the respective countries.

Line 60: in many countries - it would be good to name them and provide brief summaries
In order to maintain tight focus on our study area and avoid irrelevant broadening the discourse to include in-depth discussion of other countries, we simply removed this reference. Line 116: what previous projects? This is not clear.

All research partners were NGOs/CBOs who had collaborated in previous projects within a research network. We avoid providing irrelevant details on the focus/outcomes of other previous research by simply stating they had research experience, were NGOs/CBOs, and were networked. If further information is required, please inform.

Line 133: five regions, but four countries, right? It is a bit confusing since the author says about five regions, but provides characteristics of only four countries. It should be rephrased somehow here.

Yes, five regions, in four countries. We rephrased it and rather speak about research sites.

Line 165: must be 1.2.2.
Line 190: must be 1.2.3.
Line 225: must be 1.2.4.

We checked the numbering according to the template. 

Line 245: before moving to the methods, the author should summarize how these five regions are similar to or different from each other in terms of agricultural production, farming, COVID-19 responses, and other parameters.

We gave a short explanation on the difference related to the COVID-19 responses and highlighted that all participants were small-scale farmers actively involved in agroecological networks. We added the information into the research site description.

Lines 257-258: is it possible to provide these questions or a questionnaire sample in the appendix? A brief explanation of why these particular questions were used would be very useful.

Yes, we add the questionnaire to the appendix. We further stated that the questionnaire was iteratively developed in the process and the constant feedback of the participants improved the final version.