A Typological Classification for Assessing Farm Sustainability in the Italian Bovine Dairy Sector

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

GENERAL COMMENTS

Dear authors,
Thank you for your manuscript.
I have major questions.
Best regards,

Reviewer

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

Review the points and commas in the numbers presented throughout the manuscript.

 Line 58: “take-make - dispose" Correct to “take-make-dispose”.

Materials and Methods: Predominant cow breed? Different breeds? altitude appears in the results but does not appear in the materials and methods? Why the altitude is important?

Line 110 and 264: Structural is the same as socio-economic?

Line 240: Why include the buffalo farms with dairy farms?

Line 255: What does young conductors mean?

Line 256: 39.94% ?

Line 276: Standardise “low” and “Low”…

Lines 267-326: Is it possible to visualise the clusters in figure?

Line 409: End point.

Lines 433-444: Year?

Author Response

We thank you for the suggestions that have allowed us to improve the work.

In the attached file we respond point by point to requests for changes/explanations.

Best regards

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The presented paper deals with an important topic of farm production sustainability what is related to the ongoing discussion on agriculture and its further development.

Additionally, I believe the set of data collected by the Authors allows for complex analysis and important findings.

The strengths of the paper are as follows:

- use a FADN database

- cluster analysis

However, in my opinion, the paper needs to be reconsidered to some extend. I will present my remark in two sections: “general” and “details”.

General remarks:

The most important issue is related to the aim of the paper.

In the introduction the aim is described as follows (lines 112-114):

“…this work aims to carry out an exploratory analysis to identify the performance levels of the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) and the emerging structural relationships based on the structural characteristics of the Italian dairy farms”

While in the conclusions we can find… (line 374 – 377)

“This work aims to define the types of farms in the dairy cattle sector to provide a detailed picture of the Italian situation and at the same time create a classification of homogeneous groups of farmers based on their socio-economic situation and their performance of sustainability”.

As you can see – those aims are very different, which makes the whole paper unclear to the reader. This issue has to be corrected definitely. Taking into consideration the current content of the paper the more relevant is the “aim option” declared in the conclusion. However, even if you decide to go with this option, you need to consider how you would like to assess (measure) farms' “performance of sustainability”.

Dimensions you have selected for the paper might be used to identify “performance of sustainability”, but you need to decide how.

In my opinion, what you did is farms' calcification based on selected indicators (dimension) related to the three pillars of sustainability, but you did not assess how sustainable farms are (as I understand the expression “performance of sustainability”).

I would recommend rephrasing the aim of the paper and adjust the text accordingly.

Details remarks:

Lines 26 – 27

The part of the sentence “…identify 3 types of dairy farms, characterized on the basis of the indicators representing the 4 dimensions of the dairy farms.” => is difficult to understand if you do not know the content of the paper.

Lines 26 – 27

These externalities have generated higher social costs than private ones, with negative consequences for the whole society. This type of agriculture generates negative externalities due” => word “externalities” is used to often.

Line 71

If on the one hand one of the suggested strategies is to reduce => to many “ones”

Lines 143 – 199

Is it necessary to have a figure 1 and (just after) all dimensions indicated one more time? It make the paper unclear.

Lines 380 – 388

Is it a conclusion from the study or rather the remark to the methodology? I would suggest moving that part to another section of the paper.

Author Response

Thank you for reading our work carefully and for providing us with suggestions that have allowed us to improve our work.

In the attached file we reply point by point to requests for changes/explanations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

For research tips on the topic of sustainability, cluster analysis I recommend the following papers:

• Scarpato, D., Civero, G., Rusciano, V., & Risitano, M. (2020). Sustainable strategies and corporate social responsibility in the Italian fisheries companies. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 27(6), 2983-2990.
• Civero, G., Rusciano, V., & Scarpato, D. (2017). Consumer behaviour and corporate social responsibility: an empirical study of Expo 2015. British Food Journal.
• Rusciano, V., Civero, G., & Scarpato, D. (2020). Social and ecological high influential factors in community gardens innovation: An empirical survey in Italy. Sustainability, 12(11), 4651.
• Rusciano, V., Scarpato, D., & Civero, G. (2019). TERRITORIALSOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A CLUSTER ANALYSIS ON A CASE STUDY. Calitatea, 20(S2), 543-548.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions, we have integrated our references

Reviewer 4 Report

This study covers an interesting topic of farm typology. Mainly, the authors identify three typologies of Italian dairy farm using PCA and cluster analysis. The manuscript highlights the characteristics of these typologies, which is interesting.

First, the manuscript lacks novelty and innovation. It is not clear what scientific advancement this study brings. This study could have been more sophisticated, including local context in Italy. Currently, the study is too simple.

Second, the manuscript lacks presentation of the results, mainly PCA and Cluster analysis results. It does not provide any information on distribution of these clusters spatially. Further, interpretation of these clusters using additional data is missing.

Third, although the manuscript introduces three sustainability dimensions and also need of evidences for policies for sustainable transformation, it is not clear how these three clusters fulfil the research objectives highlighted in the introduction.

Fourth, the manuscript misses a general discussion on sustainability issues, linking the clusters. The discussion is largely focused on the clusters only.

Specific comments

L33-36: Please rewrite the statement. It is confusing, mainly due to the term “delivered” and using of different units in two sentences.

L39-41: The meaning of these phase is unclear, mainly transformation phase

Author Response

Thank you for reading our work carefully.

Thank you for providing us with the suggestions that have allowed us to improve our work.

In the attached file we reply point by point to requests for changes/explanations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,
Thank you for your manuscript.
Best regards,

Reviewer

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you again for your suggestions.

Best Regards 

All Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,
Thank you for providing updated versions of your manuscript. 
As my main comment was related to the aim of the paper, let me focus on that first.
In my opinion, the current aim of the paper is much more clear and reflects what was actually done by the Authors. Classification of Italian dairy farmers is interesting. Additionally, the proposed model, might be adopted in other countries as well. The paper is much more consistent now. 
Thank you for taking into consideration my detail comments as well.

I have only one remark to the following sentence in the concussions. 
“This objective aims to provide a homogeneous …..” => combination of “objective” and “aims” sounds unclear. It would be better to state “This study provide a homogeneous …..”

Thank you and good luck with your manuscript.
Reviewer

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you again for reading our manuscript carefully and for your valuable suggestions.
We have modified the sentence in line 346 as you suggested.
Sincerely
All authors