Policy Interventions Promoting Sustainable Food- and Feed-Systems: A Delphi Study of Legume Production and Consumption

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper the authors, through the application of an effective investigative method, Delphy method, have identified, policy interventions that may promote the production of legumes and creation of legume-based products in the EU.

1) The objective of the research article is significant. Authors have judiciously gone through relevant literature before the planning of research, which is highly appreciable. 

2) Methodologies adopted for investigations are standard and appropriate. 

Anyway, after a careful reading of the paper, this reviewer thinks that the illustrated results confirm the hypothesis of the authors in proposing:

1) Integrated strategies for a healthier human diet with a correct balance in the intake of animal and vegetable proteins. Integrated strategies for a healthier human diet with a correct balance in the intake of animal and vegetable proteins

2) Support policies that encourage reduced use of synthetic fertilizer nitrogen.

3) Encourage the production and consumption of legumes through incentive systems.

Note:

On point 3 the authors suggest economic incentives for farmers, but do not provide a concrete idea to encourage consumption. I would like to suggest that promotional and information campaigns are the most effective means of promoting consumption, in addition to adding to these the rediscovery of ancient recipes that have given legumes an important role in the history of Western gastronomy.

An alternative to the use of pesticides is biological control integrated with mulching techniques and the use of natural extracts such as nettle or wormwood macerate.

In this paper the authors, through the application of an effective investigative method, Delphy method, have identified, policy interventions that may promote the production of legumes and creation of legume-based products in the EU.

1) The objective of the research article is significant. Authors have judiciously gone through relevant literature before the planning of research, which is highly appreciable. 

2) Methodologies adopted for investigations are standard and appropriate. 

Anyway, after a careful reading of the paper, this reviewer thinks that the illustrated results confirm the hypothesis of the authors in proposing:

1) Integrated strategies for a healthier human diet with a correct balance in the intake of animal and vegetable proteins. Integrated strategies for a healthier human diet with a correct balance in the intake of animal and vegetable proteins

2) Support policies that encourage reduced use of synthetic fertilizer nitrogen.

3) Encourage the production and consumption of legumes through incentive systems.

Note:

On point 3 the authors suggest economic incentives for farmers, but do not provide a concrete idea to encourage consumption. I would like to suggest that promotional and information campaigns are the most effective means of promoting consumption, in addition to adding to these the rediscovery of ancient recipes that have given legumes an important role in the history of Western gastronomy.

An alternative to the use of pesticides is biological control integrated with mulching techniques and the use of natural extracts such as nettle or wormwood macerate.v

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful reading of our manuscript. We incorporated your proposal on legume production and consumption incentive into our conclusions. As for the consumption aspect, we specifically noted that behaviour and culinary traditions are difficult to change only via campaigns or with top-down approaches.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript ‘Promoting sustainable food- and feed-systems: a Delphi Study of legume production.’ This is an important research field to consider when developing pathways towards sustainable food systems. Thus I was pleased to see the authors take on this work of identifying barriers to legume consumption and production within the EU context. In addition, the authors explore policy options that could promote legume value chains. 

Overall, the paper has many findings that readers would be interested in learning about. However, the paper’s ‘package’ would need a bit of work to get into a publishable state. Please see my comments organized by section below.

Abstract – it is not clear whether you are focusing on just legume production systems or production and consumption of legumes. Both are used throughout the abstract, and they draw very different parameters around the project. Thus, good to be clear what the scope of the research was.

Introduction -  while there is good background here, as well as contextualization into the EU context, there are several weaknesses with this section. Notably, there is a lack of scientific references. There is quite a rich literature on the benefits of legumes (as you begin to describe in the first paragraph) – and this literature should be introduced and cited. For example, please provide examples of ‘farmed animal and human health provisions’ with references. In addition, there are many, many claims made in the introduction that are not referenced (e.g. lines 71-76, 80, 81-82 and 82-83, among many others). These must be referenced to be publishable. Specifically, the claim starting line 83 – ‘the main driver…is the subsidy’ – is this your interpretation, or do you have a reference that studied the various drivers of this action?

Materials and methods – you have not quite convinced me as a reader why the Delphi was the right method to use for this research. This could be remedied by providing a more in-depth discussion of the method. As of now, you rely on only two sources to describe this method, when again, the literature on the Delphi process is quite rich. Specific points include the following:

• Could you explain for the reader what ‘social-psychological dominance’ is, referred to in line 116?
• Starting line 125, you describe how experts were chosen. However, you say ‘amongst the invited experts…’ implying that there were also other experts. How did you choose the 80 experts to invite to participate?
• The text says that round 1 questions focused on identifying ‘barriers’ and round 2 focused on outlining potential policies, but the round 1 questions include both of these things.
• Line 156 ‘some participants’ would be more accurate than ‘many participants’ to describe only 15% of participants
• Why are you both giving experts a pre-defined list of policies to rank and also asking for their opinions on these policies in the same round? Please do explain more the justification for your Delphi process.

Data analysis - Appendix 1 would not be described as ‘a detailed explanation’, since it shows the same information as the four paragraphs of writing in the data analysis section. If you have the appendix, then you don’t need the text from lines 197-213. Rather, more description on how you did the coding and other analysis would be good text to include. Specifically:

• What is the value of the basic mental model showing logical links between the different categories? How did you use this?

Section 4 – in-depth text analysis of scenarios. Where I was expecting a discussion here, it seems that the author is presenting more results (and some interpretation), with a very limited number of citations added in. In that sense, this paper is missing the discussion, where you situate your findings among the existing literature. To be publishable, you can re-work this section to be a discussion section, and please do draw on a much wider range of existing literature. In addition, I’m also not convinced as a reader what the value of Table 4 is, compared to the narrative interpretation that is also provided.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your thorough treatment of our manuscript. Based on your feedback, we improved the contextualization of our study, clarified our methodological choices, and strengthened our arguments through more and better-placed references.

Your insightful comments helped us make this piece more digestible for potential readers. These are the followings:

• In the abstract and throughout the text, we referred to the production and consumption of legumes. The scope of the study is the enabling policy environment (from farming to consuming legumes) which could directly shape agriculture to be more sustainable. 
• In lines 71-76, 80, 81-82 and 82-83, we present the example of Greening, a recent policy that introduced grain legumes in Ecological Focus Areas. Our main reference is an EC study on the Review of greening referenced in line 85 as [10].
• As for our chosen methodology, Policy Delphi has been often deployed to shape a better agri-food environment that promotes ecologically sustainable food production through policies. A new reference added - Balázs, B. et al [17].
• In line 116: the avoidance of ‘social-psychological dominance’ refers to how Delphi enables opinion formations in anonymity, provides feedback and space for dialogue. This is now added for clarification.
• In line 125 (choice of experts): In this Delphi study, we invited a broad range of experts being corresponding authors of relevant policy literature that we processed (see ref [17-18]).
• Delphi rounds: The purpose of round one and two differ. In round one, we focussed on existing factors contributing to the low production and consumption of legumes and in round two on prospective policy actions that would support legumes' production and consumption.
• Line 156 (‘some participants’ would be more accurate than ‘many participants’ to describe only 15% of participants) - It is changed now.
• Delphi process (Why are you giving experts a pre-defined list of policies to rank and also asking for their opinions on these policies in the same round?) - The purpose was twofold: first, to obtain a consensus among a group of geographically dispersed policy experts during the assessment of 10 food policy areas that had been preidentified in our literature review and interview study (as presented in reference [17]). Second, we invited policy experts to enable opinion formation via anonym opinions to avoid dominance of personalities.
• Data analysis - Appendix 1 (more description on how you did the coding and other analysis would be a good text to include) - Explanatory text is now added in the Appendix.
• Mental model in Appendix (What is the value of the basic mental model showing logical links between the different categories? How did you use this?) - The model reflects the logic of argumentation by the experts, which is interpreted in our discussion section. This may be helpful for the potential readers to track our way of thinking; therefore, we put this in Appendix.
• Section 4 (more discussion on where the findings are situated in the existing literature, re-work to be a discussion section) - In this section, now titled Discission, we present a detailed view of the seven policy scenarios also reflecting on the most relevant aspects from the literature (references [21-27]), such as grain legume decline, ecological effects of legumes cropping, and the protein transition. Furthermore, in our conclusions, we highlight the transformative role of certain policy areas in the light of the EU Farm to fork strategy, such as knowledge transfer and extension services, multi-stakeholder collaborations for mutual learning, along regional value-chains.
• Table 4 (delete table) - Instead of deleting, we placed this code-table in Appendix C. Again, this may be helpful for the potential readers to ingest our specific way of extracting data for analysis.

Reviewer 3 Report

Very interesting paper.

Author Response

Thank you very much!

Reviewer 4 Report

The work seems to me well structured and articulated. It is methodologically correct and highly topical because legumes are an important resource for the environmental sustainability of agricultural production and for the supply of proteins available for human consumption.

Just to improve the work slightly I suggest:

line 74: "most recent reform of the CAP" is indicated 2013

But in reality plant proteins have long been a focus of attention in the Common Agricultural Policy. In the EU's regulatory schemes, for the sake of simplification, legumes have been divided into two broad categories: Protein Crops (peas, broad beans, field beans, lupins, soybeans, alfalfa, etc.) mainly for livestock use and Grain Legumes (beans, lentils, broad beans, peas, chickpeas, etc.) for human use.
The most concrete opportunity to support and incentivise the production of plant proteins was offered with the 2014-2020 CAP reform, including protein crops and grain legumes among the crops that can be granted coupled aid (aid linked to the type of crop). Further productive impulses within the CAP come from the incentives foreseen for the application of greening (ecological payment) and the measures contained in the new RDPs, in particular the agri-environmental-acclimatic payments that are perfectly suited to protein crops.
The European Parliament has also expressed its opinion on the matter, calling for a strategic plan for the supply of plant proteins that would allow the Union to reduce imports.

Congratulations on the paper

Author Response

Thank you very much for supporting the completion of our manuscript and your specific point of improvement. 

In line 74: "most recent reform of the CAP" is indicated 2013 - this is correct; the most recent reform in 2013 shaped the 2014-2020 financial period.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for your response to my previous comments, and thank you for presenting an updated draft. I do think that the authors have made efforts to clarify the scope of the paper (e.g. legume production and consumption), which was helpful. Unfortunately, the authors' response to other review comments largely outlined what was already done in the paper, rather than making any significant changes to the text or engaging more deeply with the published literature. Given the minimal changes that were made to the paper, I'm sorry to say that I can't recommend that this goes forward for publication in this journal. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf