Usefulness of Network Analysis to Characterize Technology Leaders in Small Dual-Purpose Cattle Farms in Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

GENERAL COMMENT:

I consider this work is within the scope of “Sustainability”. It contains information useful in a field in which available information is scarce and of interest to improve knowledge on how innovative technologies can be widespread across a livestock subsector throughout leader farmers. Overall, experimental design is correct and the results have been adequately discussed. However, I indicate several suggestions to be considered by the authors to improve the manuscript. My main concern related to the fact that I consider that some text in the Introduction section could be more adequate for the Materials and methods section. I indicate these recommendations below and in a commented PDF file I have uploaded.

ARTICLE FORMAT:

MDPI has recently changes its template for manuscript preparation. Please adapt your manuscript to the new template, which you can find at:

https://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/sustainability-template.dot

TITLE:

Insert “cattle” in the title, because the study presented in the manuscript relates to cattle farms.

ABSTRACT:

Lines 18-19: Insert “cattle” at: “dual-purpose farms in Mexico”, therefore resulting in “dual-purpose cattle farms in Mexico”.

Line 21: Insert “cattle”, thus resulting in: “dual-purpose cattle characterized”.

INTRODUCTION:

Line 51: According to the journal's style when citing literature in explicit way, replace “…according to [16]…” with: "...according to Rangel et al. [16],..."

Line 52: Replace “…On the other hand, [17], have pointed…” with “…On the other hand, Espinosa-García [17] have pointed…”.

Line 55: Replace “;” with comma.

Line 58: It sounds strange to use “Since” as this meaning. Please check whether it has been correctly used.

Line 72: Insert “cattle”, thus resulting in: “dual-purpose cattle smallholders”.

Line 76: Replace “…dissemination, [30] stated…” with “…dissemination, Kahan [30] stated…”

Lines 73-80: In my opinion, this text related to social network analysis must be placed before formulating the objective of the study (that is always the las part of the Introduction in scientific articles). I recommend moving this information near to line 63 when you speak about the need to improve understanding technology adoption from a SNA perspective, because this information is optimum to explain there the role of SNA for this purpose.

Lines 81-86: This information is more adequate to the Discussion section. I recommend moving it there.

Lines 87-139: This information is description of methodology used. Therefore, I recommend moving it to the Materials and methods section, as a subsection named "Methodological background" or similar.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Line 143: Insert "cattle", thus resulting in “…Dual-purpose cattle farms…”

Line 148: To fit the journal's style, rewrite as: "The main characteristics of this group were previously described [6,8,11,53]"

Line 151: According to the journal's style, to cite “…described by [9,11,54,55]…” in explicit way it is necessary to indicate last name of author, followed by "et al." (when appropriate) and the citation number between brackets, Please revise.

Line 168: See the same comment for line 151.

Line 171: Remove comma where indicated.

Line 175: What does it mean “GGAVATT” initials? the first time initials not internationally known appears in the manuscript, must be accompanied with the full words (and the initials between parentheses).

Line 186: In scientific writing, a sentence must not begin with initials. Therefore, write “SPR” with the full words.

Line 190: Remove comma where indicated.

End of the Materials and methods section: please indicate the descriptive statics used in the analyses.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Line 214: Replace “averages” with "averaged" because results must be written in past tense.

Line 214: Please revise sentence writing. In do not understand well what it means.

Line 234: Correct “…to the [18,…”] as: "...to that of Aguirre-López et al. [18],..."

Line 252: Correct “the findings of [11] and [53]” as “the findings of Rangel et al. [11,53]”.

Line 266: Correct “[11] and [42].” as: "[11,42]."

Lines 285-286: If you use explicit citation style, then follow the journal's style for it.

Line 302: Replace “reported by [10] and [63]” with “reported by Granados-Rivera et al. [10] and Díaz et al. [63]”.

Line 319: Replace “agree with [67]” with “agree with Zacharakis et al. [67]”.

Line 322: Replace “found by [68]” with “found by Dhehibi et al. [68]”.

Line 328: Replace “Similarly, [36] SNA” with: “Similarly, Zarazúa et al. [36] SNA”

Line 332: Replace: “those of [64]” with: “those of Espejel-García et al. [64]”·.

Line 337: Replace “On the other hand, [70] SNA” with “On the other hand, Gholifar et al. [70] SNA”.

Line 342: Replace “differ from [71]” with: “differ from Kleinnijenhuis et al. [71]”.

CONCLUSIONS:

Line 3: Insert: "cattle" where indicated.

REFERENCES SECTION:

In general terms, this section adjust to style and format of the journal. However, it is possible to review it to remove typos. See some examples in the commented version of the manuscript I have uploaded.

TABLES:

Table 1, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Table 1: for decimal positions, replace comma with point in the three numbers indicated.

Table 1: For homogeneity, use two decimal positions in “107.8”.

Table 2, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Table 3, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Table 4: Due to the fact that in scientific publications, Tables need to be completely interpreted without reading the manuscript text, it is necessary to indicate in this legend what GGCATT and SPR do it mean.

Table 4: Indicate in a footnote what SNA does it mean.

FIGURES:

Figures 1 and 2: Due to the fact that in scientific publications, Figures need to be completely interpreted without reading the manuscript text, it is necessary to indicate in this legend what GGCATT and SPR do it mean.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We want to thank you for your work and valuable comments that have substantially help us to improve the quality of our initial manuscript. We have considered your comments and we have done all the suggested corrections.

Please, find our answer to each of your suggestions in the description below.

We hope you like the new version of the manuscript.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Kind Regards,

The authors

ARTICLE FORMAT:

In general terms, we have reviewed carefully all the manuscript and we have done several changes in the citation style where needed, according to the journal's style. We also have changed the verb tenses to the past where we have found this kind of grammar errors. Finally, to make the changes visible we have used the track changes in Word and coloured it in blue.

MDPI has recently changes its template for manuscript preparation. Please adapt your manuscript to the new template, which you can find at:

https://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/sustainability-template.dot

Answer: We have download and adapted the manuscript to the new template

TITLE:

Insert “cattle” in the title, because the study presented in the manuscript relates to cattle farms.

Answer: We have included “cattle” in the title. So, the new title is as follow:

“Usefulness of network analysis to characterize technology leaders in small dual-purpose cattle farms in Mexico”

ABSTRACT:

Lines 18-19: Insert “cattle” at: “dual-purpose farms in Mexico”, therefore resulting in “dual-purpose cattle farms in Mexico”.

Line 21: Insert “cattle”, thus resulting in: “dual-purpose cattle characterized”.

Answer to the comments on Lines 18-19 and Line 21: We have included “cattle” twice in the abstract as indicated by the reviewer and the new version of the abstract is as follow:

“Abstract: The low technology adoption rate is one of the major problems in very small dual-purpose cattle farms in Mexico. Using Social Network Analysis approach, we characterized the farmer leaders in the innovation network and deepened the knowledge on the low technological adoption causes. The sample consisted of 383 very small farms of dual-purpose cattle characterized by using nine reproductive management technologies. Our findings suggested that network position of farmers had a significant impact on the technological level. Hence, the farthest farmers from the technology leaders showed the lowest levels of betweenness centrality index and high rates of constraint. Apart from this, advice, productive orientation, and intensification were also differentiating elements at the technological level. The findings provided relevant insights and useful tools to policy makers to better support, coordinate and enhance the adoption of innovation among smallholders”.

INTRODUCTION:

Line 51: According to the journal's style when citing literature in explicit way, replace “…according to [16]…” with: "...according to Rangel et al. [16],..."

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style in all the manuscript. In this case the new sentence is as follow:

“On the one hand, According to Rangel et al. [16], these farmers use only 46.96% of the technologies potentially available to them”.

Line 52: Replace “…On the other hand, [17], have pointed…” with “…On the other hand, Espinosa-García [17] have pointed…”.

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new sentence is as follow:

“On the other hand, In this sense Espinosa-García et al. [17], have pointed out that this is compounded by the lack of technology transfer programmes and technical assistance.”

Line 55: Replace “;” with comma.

Answer: We have replaced “;” with “,” and now it looks much better. Here is the new sentence:

“Even when the adoption of new agricultural technologies is an important route out of poverty for many in the developing world, agricultural innovations are often adopted slowly, and some aspects of the adoption process remain poorly understood [5,18-21].”

Line 58: It sounds strange to use “Since” as this meaning. Please check whether it has been correctly used.

Answer: We have made substantial changes to this paragraph to make it understandable. Here is the new paragraph:

“However, The low technology adoption rate is one of the major problems of very small dual-purpose farms in Mexico [9,11,12,15]. On the one hand, According to Rangel et al. [16], these farmers use only 46.96% of the technologies potentially available to them. In this sense, On the other hand, Espinosa-García et al. [17], have pointed out that this is compounded by the lack of technology transfer programmes and technical assistance. Even when the adoption of new agricultural technologies is an important route out of poverty for many in the developing world;, agricultural innovations are often adopted slowly, and some aspects of the adoption process remain poorly understood [5,18-21]. This indicates a need to investigate the reasons for the low technological adoption rate in dual-purpose livestock systems. Since, With the purpose as an intent to understand the failures in the adoption process, previous studies have mainly focused on the farm’s size and credit constraints on the adoption process [7,22].”

Line 72: Insert “cattle”, thus resulting in: “dual-purpose cattle smallholders”.

Answer: We have inserted “cattle” in the paragraph indicated and the new paragraph is as follow:

“The objectives of this study are were to identify influencer farmers in the innovation network and to perform a benchmarking analysis to evaluate what characteristics these leaders have, and thus deepen the knowledge of the rejection causes during technologies adoption processes of dual-purpose cattle smallholders in Mexico.”

Line 76: Replace “…dissemination, [30] stated…” with “…dissemination, Kahan [30] stated…”

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“Regarding the usefulness of benchmarking analysis in the context of innovation dissemination, Kahan [30] stated that farmers often do benchmarking informally from something as straightforward as observing and talking to successful farmers.”

Lines 73-80: In my opinion, this text related to social network analysis must be placed before formulating the objective of the study (that is always the las part of the Introduction in scientific articles). I recommend moving this information near to line 63 when you speak about the need to improve understanding technology adoption from a SNA perspective, because this information is optimum to explain there the role of SNA for this purpose.

Answer: We have done several changes to this paragraph and placed it before formulating the research objectives, to make it comprehensible. So, now the whole paragraph is as follow:

“However, The low technology adoption rate is one of the major problems of very small dual-purpose farms in Mexico [9,11,12,15]. On the one hand, According to Rangel et al. [16], these farmers use only 46.96% of the technologies potentially available to them. In this sense, On the other hand, Espinosa-García et al. [17], have pointed out that this is compounded by the lack of technology transfer programmes and technical assistance. Even when the adoption of new agricultural technologies is an important route out of poverty for many in the developing world;, agricultural innovations are often adopted slowly, and some aspects of the adoption process remain poorly understood [5,18-21]. This indicates a need to investigate the reasons for the low technological adoption rate in dual-purpose livestock systems. Since, With the purpose as an intent to understand the failures in the adoption process, previous studies have mainly focused on the farm’s size and credit constraints on the adoption process [7,22]. However, very little empirical researchers have explored the relationships between a farmer's contact networks and his decision to adopt or reject new technologies, and how these interactions may work to enhance or limit smallholder farmer innovation [21,23]. Hence, a need to improve the understanding of technology adoption from a social network analysis (SNA) perspective [24-29] has been identified, with a focus on the relationships among key farmers capable of spread innovation and enhance the adoption of new technologies. Social network analysis approach is used to identify farmers who are performing well and are successful at what they do, to evaluate with a benchmark analysis the strengths and weaknesses of their technological practices and the steps needed to improve performance. Regarding the usefulness of benchmarking analysis in the context of innovation dissemination, Kahan [30] stated that farmers often do benchmarking informally from something as straightforward as observing and talking to successful farmers. A farmer sees another farmer with a larger harvest or one who gets a better price for the same product at the same market. Why is this so? A farmer hears of an-other farmer who reduces costs by introducing a new technology. Should she or he do the same? This study is aimed to answer the following research questions:”

Lines 81-86: This information is more adequate to the Discussion section. I recommend moving it there.

Answer: We have moved the indicated paragraph to the discussion section as recommended, and here is the new paragraph:

“This research makes a significant contribution to advance the understanding of the low technology adoption rate in the area of reproductive management in livestock systems, as technology is a strategic tool for development and increasing the competitiveness and viability of the farms [5,22,31], and contributions to the field will foster development that allows identifying viable technologies, the sequence of adoption, the mode of dissemination and the technological leaders [8,32]. These findings agree with Zacharakis et al. [67], who suggested that networks are most effective when they are diverse, inclusive, flexible, horizontal; linking those of similar status; and vertical, linking those who have resources not available within the community.”

Lines 87-139: This information is description of methodology used. Therefore, I recommend moving it to the Materials and methods section, as a subsection named "Methodological background" or similar.

Answer: We have moved the indicated information to the methodology as the reviewer suggested. We agree that this change facilitates paper comprehension and makes it more understandable. So, we have also remunerated this in subsection 2.3 and 2.4 as follow:

“2.3 Methodological background

In the current study, we used the SNA methodological perspective from the Social capital theory, as a core element in the access to technological resources embedded in livestock innovation networks, which will be further explained in the following section [33-39]. Social capital consists of a series of resources that individuals can obtain from the structure of social networks. Two of the most important resources are information flowing through networks and obligations of reciprocity which can come out of the confidence between agents in the same network [33,40-42]. Therefore, SNA provides a useful theoretical framework to investigate social structures and has been recognised as a distinct research approach to study relations rather than attributes, mapping trust and knowledge networks [32,36]; and therefore can be applied to the study of Social capital [37,38,43].

In this study, Social capital is considered as a resource through which farmers access valuable information that allows them to be more efficient in the production process. It is believed that those farmers well connected to key players (technological leaders) can imitate their strategies, which becomes a competitive advantage. Hence, it is not necessarily true that the farmers with a higher rate of technological adoption are the most productive, but rather a group of farmers appear on the network that, making use of this advantage in access to information, manage themselves to be more efficient with fewer technologies [26]. These technologies are called core technologies, with high impact on productivity. Consequently, the position of a certain farmer and its proximity to the technological leaders in the Technological Innovation Network is crucial when adopting or rejecting technology [26]. Then, Social networks as a form of Social capital constitute a production input which can affect the farm’ productive capabilities and its level of technological adoption, influencing the economic performance and explaining differences on the adoption rate among farmers with similar endowments [5].

In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature supporting the idea of Social capital as a competitive advantage, explaining economic outcomes on the individual level [35,40,44-46]. According to [43], the interactions within community members who interact directly, frequently, in multi-faceted ways, generate opportunities by providing them with a competitive advantage in pursuing their ends. [40] described Social capital as a function of brokerage opportunities, while [35] suggested it as a source of information that enables productive synergies development. Similarly, [38] studied how different forms of Social capital may affect innovation in smallholder farming systems and they found a strong presence of interpersonal agricultural knowledge networks operating to: 1) facilitate farmer-to farmer knowledge exchange; 2) increase farmer access to information; and 3) connect farmers to sources of support, pointing out the role of peer farmers’ as the primary source of new agricultural knowledge.

2.4. Network definition and Benchmark

The SNA methodology has developed a series of measures that are directly related to Social capital and therefore included in the processes of agricultural extension to foster innovation. According to [34,47-52], the network measures considered in the following analyses are:

Degree: Degree has a positive relation to Social capital since the more actors you have relationships with, the greater the chance that one of them has the resource you need. Closeness: Since closeness is related to the reciprocal of geodesic distance from an actor to all the others in the network, it has a negative relationship with Social capital. So, the greater the distance to other actors, the less the chance of receiving information in a timely way. Betweenness: Actors with high betweenness link together actors who are otherwise unconnected, creating opportunities for exploitation of information and control benefits, which makes the relation positive. Eigenvector: is the extent to which an actor is connected to actors who present themselves high values of eigenvector centrality. Therefore, actors have high eigenvector scores when they are connected to well-connected others, making the relation to Social capital positive. Constraint: Network constraint is an index that measures the extent to which an actor’s contacts are redundant. Constraint is high if contacts are directly connected to one another (dense network) or indirectly connected via a central contact [40]. Therefore, the more constrained the actor, the fewer opportunities for action, which make the relationship between constraint and Social capital negative.”

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Line 143: Insert "cattle", thus resulting in “…Dual-purpose cattle farms…”

Answer: We have included “cattle” as indicated by the reviewer and here is the new paragraph:

“This study was part of a larger research project in Mexican tropics, where Ddual-purpose cattle farms have been characterized according to technological innovation level into five groups [11,32].”

Line 148: To fit the journal's style, rewrite as: "The main characteristics of this group were previously described [6,8,11,53]"

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“Here, we focused on the more vulnerable and smaller group of farmers with 50 or fewer cows (n = 383), which represent 26% of the sample, distributed into Dry and Wet Tropics. In [6,8,11,53], the main characteristics of this group was widely described. The main characteristics of this group were previously described in [6,8,11,53].”

Line 151: According to the journal's style, to cite “…described by [9,11,54,55]…” in explicit way it is necessary to indicate last name of author, followed by "et al." (when appropriate) and the citation number between brackets, Please revise.

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“The selection of technological innovations was accomplished through qualitative and participatory analysis, according to the methodology described by Rangel et al. [9,11], Torres et al. [54], and Rivas et al. [55], based on the farmer's technological preferences.”

Line 168: See the same comment for line 151.

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

Secondly, after considering the different ways of analysing two-mode networks developed by Borgatti et al. [56,59], Everett et al. [57], and Hanneman [60], the two-mode data was transformed into a bipartite graph.

Line 171: Remove comma where indicated.

Answer: We removed the comma as indicated. So, here es the new sentence:

“In this case, we must note, that the affiliation to an organization was considered as an essential and differentiating attribute.”

Line 175: What does it mean “GGAVATT” initials? the first time initials not internationally known appears in the manuscript, must be accompanied with the full words (and the initials between parentheses).

Answer: We have included GGAVATT initials meaning as indicated and this is the new sentence:

“The GGAVATT (Livestock Groups for Technological Validation and Transfer) was the most important organization at the public level, belonging to INIFAP, an institution that operates nationally.”

Line 186: In scientific writing, a sentence must not begin with initials. Therefore, write “SPR” with the full words.

Answer: We have introduced the suggested changes and started the paragraph with the full SPR words as follow:

“In the private sector, there were several organizations. The second most important organization in the number of affiliates was SPR (The Rural Production Society), with 9.4% of the sample. The Rural Production Society operates statewide and was constituted by a group of producers aimed at agricultural activity improvement, through the coordination of productive economic activities, mutual assistance, etc.”

Line 190: Remove comma where indicated.

Answer: We have removed the comma as is shown below:

“Other less widespread organizations in the area, were Cooperative Society (3.66%), producers’ organization (1.04%) and non-productive organization (2.09%).”

End of the Materials and methods section: please indicate the descriptive statics used in the analyses.

Answer: We have specified the descriptive statistics used in the analyses. So, we have included it in the following paragraph as is shown below:

“Finally, a comparative benchmarking analysis was carried out among the profiles of seven dual-purpose farmers chosen through SNA measures (Degree, Closeness, Eigenvector, Betweenness and Constraint). Mean, median, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, minimum and maximum were the descriptive statistic used in the technological analyses. The approach is novel as it seeks to introduce network measures into the analysis to studying how farmers make production decisions and what factors influence their decisions. The analysis and visualization of the dual-purpose cattle network in Mexican tropics were carried out using the UCINET software [62].”

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Line 214: Replace “averages” with "averaged" because results must be written in past tense.

Answer: We have reviewed carefully all the manuscript and we have changed the verb tenses where we have found this kind of errors. So, we have done the following changes to this paragraph as follow:

“The farmer was 51 years old and three people economically dependent on the farm (dependent relatives). The annual milk production was 11,229.4 L and the productivity per cow and ha was 988 L/cow and 108 L/ha, respectively.”

Line 214: Please revise sentence writing. In do not understand well what it means.

Answer: We have replaced “people economically dependent on the producer” with “people economically dependent on the farm (dependent relatives)”, to make it understandable.

“The farmer averages was 51 years old and three people economically dependent on the producer farm (dependent relatives). The average annual milk production is was 11,229.4 L and the productivity per cow and ha is in average was of 988 L/cow and 108 L/ha, respectively.”

Line 234: Correct “…to the [18,…”] as: "...to that of Aguirre-López et al. [18],..."

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“These results were similar to the that of Aguirre-López et al. [18], who found a betweenness of 0.394 in the adoption patterns of conservation agriculture practices among 222 maize smallholder farmers in the Mexican state of Chiapas.”

Line 252: Correct “the findings of [11] and [53]” as “the findings of Rangel et al. [11,53]”.

Answer: We have done the suggested corrections in the citation, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“This results corroborates the findings of Rangel et al. [11,53], who found in the dual-purpose livestock system that while the structural characteristics of the farms were quite heterogeneous, the technological levels were quite homogeneous.”

Line 266: Correct “[11] and [42].” as: "[11,42]."

Answer: We have corrected the citation, and the new sentence is as follow:

“So, they were considered complementary technologies [11,42].”

Lines 285-286: If you use explicit citation style, then follow the journal's style for it.

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“According to Guiomar et al. [3], De-Pablos-Heredero et al. [5], and Granados-Rivera et al. [11], high technological adoption rates are associated with a diversified productive strategy.”

Line 302: Replace “reported by [10] and [63]” with “reported by Granados-Rivera et al. [10] and Díaz et al. [63]”.

Answer: We have made the suggested changes in the citation style, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“In the GGAVATT there has been a generational renewal with younger producers and only one employee; while in SPR, the farmer was older, with three people economically dependent on the activity. Similar results were reported by Granados-Rivera et al. [10] and Díaz et al. [63].”

Line 319: Replace “agree with [67]” with “agree with Zacharakis et al. [67]”.

Answer: We have done the replacement suggested, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“These findings agree with Zacharakis et al. [67], who suggested that networks are most effective when they are diverse, inclusive, flexible, horizontal; linking those of similar status; and vertical, linking those who have resources not available within the community.”

Line 322: Replace “found by [68]” with “found by Dhehibi et al. [68]”.

Answer: We have done the replacement suggested, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“These results also match those found by Dhehibi et al. [68], who studied the agricultural technology transfer preferences of smallholder farmers in Tunisia and found that farmer-to-farmer interactions were perceived as the most effective agricultural extension methods.”

Line 328: Replace “Similarly, [36] SNA” with: “Similarly, Zarazúa et al. [36] SNA”

Answer: We have done some changes to this paragraph as is shown below:

“Similarly, Zarazúa et al. [36] applied SNA approach to assess Social capital indicators in two groups of corn producers in Michoacán and found a strong relationship between the enhancement of technological innovation and the links established by farmers with actors involved in livestock activities.”

Line 332: Replace: “those of [64]” with: “those of Espejel-García et al. [64]”·.

Answer: We have done the replacement suggested, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“These results were in line with those of Espejel-García et al. [64], in their study of the interaction patterns in Mexico rural innovation system, where they found that there were agents who act as intermediaries of innovation with the ability to articulate the innovation system, link the actors and bring innovation to the end user.”

Line 337: Replace “On the other hand, [70] SNA” with “On the other hand, Gholifar et al. [70] SNA”.

Answer: We have done the replacement suggested, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“On the other hand, Gholifar et al. [70] SNA approach used SNA approach to study sustainable aquaculture systems through institutional collaboration network at Alborz Watershed in Iran and found that organizations can play a key role in the distribution of information, knowledge, and intersectoral cooperation among social agents; and pointed out that government agencies have more power and centrality in comparison to nongovernmental organizations, indicating a lack of co-management in the field.”

Line 342: Replace “differ from [71]” with: “differ from Kleinnijenhuis et al. [71]”.

Answer: We have done the replacement suggested, and the new paragraph is as follow:

“However, these results differ from Kleinnijenhuis et al. [71] who measured social influence in networks of practice and found that the members in the network who communicate about informal practice, and know who knows what, exert more social influence than others; suggesting that members’ social influence is rooted in their utilitarian value for others, and not in their organizational embeddedness.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Line 3: Insert: "cattle" where indicated.

Answer: We have inserted “cattle” as indicated. So, the new introductory paragraph of the conclusion is shown below:

“This research delved into the factors to explain the low technology adoption rate in the very small dual-purpose cattle farms in Mexicans tropics, employing the descriptive measure of social network analysis approach to examine its structure.”

REFERENCES SECTION:

In general terms, this section adjust to style and format of the journal. However, it is possible to review it to remove typos. See some examples in the commented version of the manuscript I have uploaded.

Answer: We have reviewed the reference section in detail, and we have removed some typos that we have found.

TABLES:

Table 1, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Table 1: for decimal positions, replace comma with point in the three numbers indicated.

Table 1: For homogeneity, use two decimal positions in “107.8”.

Answer: About table 1, we have done the suggested changes as indicated by the reviewer as is shown in the image below:

Table 2, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Answer: About table 2, we have included the word “cattle” in the title as is shown in the image below:

Table 3, title: Insert “cattle” where indicated, thus resulting in “…dual-purpose cattle farms…”.

Answer: About table 3, we have included the word “cattle” in the title as is shown in the image below:

Table 4: Due to the fact that in scientific publications, Tables need to be completely interpreted without reading the manuscript text, it is necessary to indicate in this legend what GGCATT and SPR do it mean.

Table 4: Indicate in a footnote what SNA does it mean.

Answer: About table 4, we have done the suggested changes as is shown in the image below:

FIGURES:

Figures 1 and 2: Due to the fact that in scientific publications, Figures need to be completely interpreted without reading the manuscript text, it is necessary to indicate in this legend what GGCATT and SPR do it mean.

Answer: We have done the suggested changes and we have included the meaning of these initials in the legend as it can be seen below (at the end or the attached file):

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

the manuscript addresses a very important topic that makes a significant contribution to advance the understanding of the low technology adoption rate in the area of reproductive management in livestock systems.

This is an interesting study.

The objectives of the study are of interest and are in line with the scope of the journal.

The abstract clearly indicates the work objective, methodology and result of the study.

The methodology is well articulated. The results reported are pertinent.

The paper is generally well written and structured.

In my opinion the manuscript could be accepted for publication in Sustainability.

Author Response

We want to thank you for your work and the time you have taken to read the manuscript.

We have checked carefully all the manuscript and we have done several changes in the citation style where needed, according to the journal's style. We also have changed the verb tenses to the past where we have found this kind of grammar errors. We believe that the manuscript has been improved considerably.

We hope you like the new version of the manuscript.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Kind Regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf