Assessment of Livestock Feed Resources and Coping Strategies with Dry Season Feed Scarcity in Mixed Crop–Livestock Farming Systems around the Gilgel Gibe Catchment, Southwest Ethiopia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study evaluated livestock feed resources and feeding practices, coping strategies with feed scarsity, and identified the major constraints to livestock production across three altitude regions in mixed farming system around the Gilgel Gibe catchment, southwest Ethiopia.
The topic of paper is interesting and in the aim of the journal; however, the paper requires major revision because needs some additional work and information to be considered for publication.
The bibliographical references are not recent. Please, upgrade the references with more recent studies……
I suggest summarizing the discussion and combining it with results
Specific comments and suggestions for improving the paper are:
Title
please, summarize: e.g Feed, Feeding, Feed is a repetition!
Abstract
Please, summarize….as according authors guidelines: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum”
Lines 61, 64, 66, 68 etc……, please, insert reference number..See author guidelines!
Line 77, please, specified IGAD…..it is not quite recent 2013!
Line 105, please, upgrade the reference
Line 185-186, please, insert the scientific name of the plant with the authority
Figure 1, I suggest also inserting Africa's figure
Line 193, please, add Gilgel Gibe catchment, southwest Ethiopia
Line 266, please, delete SE Standard error
Line 267, please, delete NS= non-significant
Line 210, “and 102 in LAR” perhaps HAR?
Table 1, please, insert TARs instead of Altitude regions
Table 1, please delete (ha) from Arable/crop land and grazing land
Table 2, please, check….there are graphic problems
Line 320 please, insert Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman instead of enset ventricosum
Lines 320-321, please, insert the authority after Musa accuminata
Line 321, please, insert the authority after Saccharum officinarum
Line 322, please, insert the authority after Ipomoea batatus
Table 3, please, for each row insert the letters for statistically significance
Lines 364-401, please, insert tables…..
Line 409, please insert Ensete ventricosum instead of enset ventricosum
Line 419-497, please, insert a table
Line 480, please, summarize the table 7 caption
Line 501, please, check…. The total of 80.1+14.1+8.8 is 103
Line 504, please, check….as above… the total is 87.9
Line 633, please check Asfew and Jabbar……in the reference list is Asfawu, N., and Mohammad
Line 634, is female cattle 55.48 or 54? Please, specify it or rephase
Line 680, please, insert the scientific name of the plant with the authority
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you so much for your very excellent, valuable, careful an timely review of our paper. We were pretty impressed by the review that you made and very grateful to you for the thoughtful and genuine review. Based on your comments, we have made detailed revisions as much as possible to improve the quality of the original manuscript. We believe that the paper has been greatly improved to your satisfaction and the journal's standard. All revisions made to the paper are indicated with track change.
Once again, we acknowledge your comments very much, which was very valuable in improving the quality of our paper.
Yours Sincerely,
Reviewer 2 Report
The study attempts to explore, combining qualitative and quantitative research methods the livestock Feed Resources, feeding Practices, and coping strategies with feed scarcity in smallholder mixed crop-livestock farming system as regards a particular study area in Ethiopia.
The paper has a potential to contribute to the Sustainability but there are some improvements needed.
Below I have some comments for the Authors to address:
Abstract – needs throughout revision to present in a comprehensive manner the aims of the study, the methods applied and added value of the research conducted. The information regarding the project and collaboration could be presented in material and methods.
Introduction
What I miss in the introduction is a concise description of the current situation and the problems with access to feed per livestock category. The information brought forward highlighted the constrains identified in the past but the recent challenges are poorly tackled e.g., “This is often attributed to various constraints such as livestock feed scarcity during dry season, high prevalence of diseases and parasites, low genetic potential of local breeds, inadequate veterinary services, lack of access to credit, land scarcity, and poor management practices across all production systems (Zegeye, 2003)”.
Some of the information on the country profile is outdated e.g. “Agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopia’s economy and contributes about 43.8% 69 of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 90% of exports earnings, and employees 70 about 85% of the work force (CIA, 2009)”.
As such the introductions poorly introduce to the reader to the main objectives of the study “The objective of this study was to assess livestock feed resources, feeding practices, coping strategies with feed scarcity, and to identify the major constraints to livestock production across three altitude regions in smallholder mixed crop-livestock production, southwest Ethiopia”. What about feeding coping strategies? Any shortcomings identified per livestock category?
Results
The result section must be better structured. There is an overwhelming amount of data included. It should be presented in a common format in separate tables. As such it is difficult the capture the main points and identify the statistically significant differences.
Discussion
4.1. Socio-economic characteristics of respondents
The title does not match the content. Moreover, it does not bring any new information or insights e.g. Previous studies reported that well-educated farmers have a better opportunity to acquire and process information on new technologies than less educated ones (Kabirizi et al. 2009).
The other sub-chapters referring to the characteristic of the farms could be merged.
There is no clear line of discussion. I miss a more in depth discussion of the aspects presented in the objective of the studies.
Another issue is the relevance of the references you used. They are outdated “Previous studies (Seyoum and Zinash, 1989; Zinash et al., 1995) reported that the energy value of natural pasture was less than 7.5 MJ/Kg DM. The CP content was also less than 7% for natural pasture and hay (Seyoum and Zinash, 1991; Zinash et al., 1995), which is much less than what is needed for adequate rumen microbial activity.
The discussion should be revised and supported by up-to-date appropriate references.
Conclusion
The conclusion is more like a summary and a set of recommendation. It should be reduced to clearly highlight what you achieved and what is the added value of your study.
The conclusion of your study should also better reflect what is the contribution of your paper to deepening the knowledge on the social, economic and environmental sustainability.
What are the limitation of the study?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you so much for your very excellent, valuable and timely review of our paper. We were pretty impressed by the quality review that you made and very grateful to you for the thoughtful review and genuine decision. based on your comments, we have made detailed revisions as much as possible to improve the quality of the original paper. we believe that the paper has been greatly improved to your satisfaction and the journal's styles. All revisions made in the paper were indicated using track change.
Once again, we acknowledge your comments very much, which was very valuable in improving the quality of the paper.
Sincerely yours,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors, many thanks for your kind answer. However, I have realized that the answers point by point to each of my questions are still missing!!!!
In fact, the title has not been summarized!!!
Line 41, please, specify GDP
Line 87, please, delete Makkar et al., 2016a
Line 170, please insert vulgare instead of vulgarae
My requests still remain valid!!! See below the details:
Lines 170-177, as I requested, please, insert the autority after the scientific name of the plants…i. e. Hordeum vulgare L. etc…
Figure 1, the Africa’s figure is missing!!!!! Please, add it….
I suggested summarizing the discussion and combining it with the results but the authors did not….. It is useful to do it to improve the paper!!
If you disagree with my comments, please argument it.
Author Response
Dear editor,
We would like to thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which help us improve the quality of the paper. The revison of the article has been cared out to take your comments into account. And in this process, we believe the paper has been improved as per your comments, except your comment to combine results and discussion due to our reason stated in the response to the reviewer's comment.
Once again, we thank you so much for taking the time and effort necessary to review our manuscript.
Yours sincerely,
The authors
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I think the paper is significantly improved. What I miss in the conclusions is some reference to the contribution of your study to the research in the domain of sustainability. When describing limitations refer to the small sample size and specific study area.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We would like to thank you very much for your valuable comments on our manuscript. We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments, which helped us to improve the quality of our the paper. A minor revision of the paper has been done to take your comment into account.
Once again, we thank you so much for taking the time and effort necessary to review the manuscript.
Yours sincerely,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
please, check line 40….domestic gross product (GDP)... perhaps gross domestic product.
