Livestock Keepers’ Attitudes: Keystone of Effective Community-Based Breeding Programs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:

The manuscript analyses the results of a survey based on a dataset that had been gained from 125 farmers in southwestern Burkina Faso by asking their attitude towards local cattle breeding strategies and tools. Community-based cattle breeding programs (CBBP) have been implemented in some communities in the region and were found to have effective potential to improve cattle breeding.

-The seven categories of data should be reduced by omitting two possible answers, namely „agree” and „disagree”, unless there were clearly formulated differences for all answer types describing exactly the differences between „agree” vs. „totally agree” and „disagree” vs. „totally disagree”, respectively. Due to this, all statistics have to be recalculated, all belonging tables and figures redrawn and text adapted.

-Why were by default nonparametric tests used for analysing continuous variables? Due to failing normal distributions? The reason should be given.

The construction of the manuscript is slightly dysbalanced. Especially Discussion is somewhat lenghty, despite its clear structure and Conclusion is not sufficiently densed formulated. Several references might be unnecessary, especially from those that are not strictly related with the topic. The English language is fine, only a few spelling mistakes were found.

Specific comments:

L95-96: ---conventional breeding programs, CBBPs focus…

L106: …non-linear…

L114-118: What will these two sentence say? An easier formulation would be preferred.

L120: …strategies have…

L166: ...are described elsewhere…

L198: …values were removed…

L240-241: results should not contain comparison with literature date. Transpose it into the Discussion.
L241: …results [34]. …

L253: …(Fig. 2)…

L258: avoiding crossing is in Table 3 and in Fig. 2 (missing Title of Fig. 2) a negative value, the others are all positive. Beside the – signs and their belonging values in Table 3 should be in one row and not divided into two.

L265: …from the production…

L366: …associations for sustainability of the breeding programs….

L442-443: Avoid 1^st sentence from here.

L470-666: References: Several, seemingly less significant sources should be omitted and kept the real relevant ones. As it is now, the form of the list is manyfold inaccurate. Authors need to carefully correct the entire list by exactly following instructions given for Authors.

Typical common typeset and examples are:

Font style, dots, first letters of journal names sometimes not in Capital letter, abbreviated and full length journal names, missing spaces between characters, missing closing bracket, incomplete records

Figures 2 to 4: missing Figure names.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

COMMENTS TO AUTHORS

GENERAL COMMENT

In their work, Zoma-Traoré et al. have provided a detailed overview of farmers' attitudes towards breeding aspects inherent to the successful implementation of community-based breeding programs in Burkin Faso(western Africa). Interestingly, they have compared production systems which are related to different  ethnic groups, livestock breeds and farming style. Disentangling and interpreting the factors underlying these attitudes is certainly a demanding but worthwhile task, in that it will help conceiving more effective and sustainable community-based cattle breeding programs. While the study design is appropriate and the graphical items (i.e., tables and figures) are useful, the text is poorly written and suffer from a number of drawbacks dealing with syntax, grammar, repetitions and lack of clarity. There is a mix of American and British English resulting in lack of consistency. Wordiness is a big concern throughout the entire MS, which would greatly benefit from a thorough revision of the English language. I have made a big effort in amending a number of passages in the pdf of the MS suggesting a number of improvements, including deletions and rewording, while recommending the authors to edit some obscure passages by themselves. The Authors will find my corrections and suggestions (which I warmly recommend accepting) in the form of comments in the pdf; however, I also invite the Authors to get a native speaker revising carefully the entire MS. The resolution of the figure should be improved.

MINOR COMMENTS

Please, have a look at my comments in the pdf of the MS.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors tried to understand livestock keepers' attitudes based on a questionnaire. The evaluation and the used methods seems to be appropriate to receive correct results. The evaluation is well illustrated and the conclusions are based on their own results. I have only a few comments to identify several typing and editing mistakes:

Please revise coding of significant differences within the whole manuscript. Coding has to be uniform across the manuscript from lowest/highest value increasingly/decreasingly.

Figures have to be revised. Places of figures are shown in the manuscript, but there are no titles and numbers of them except figure 1.

L219: ...FactoMineR... instead of ...factoMineR...
L265: ...from the production... instead of ...from the the production...

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript became more clear and its sections more properly constructed after revision. Due to the proofreading, the English language has further improved and made the text more understandable.

However, Reviewers previous major concern about the technique of possible answer categories still exists, because a clearly defined differentiation among the three levels of the positive and the negative answers are still missing. It is obvious that authors took over their own, recently published six plus one level scale unchanged, including how to avoid the central tendency bias (Collado et al. (2021). To Reviewer’s opinion, by including a seventh option, that contains the not knowing / not having answer, the central tendency bias is not any more avoided. Authors’ argumentation of using the seven categories model, in which three levels have positive and three others negative directions, while one is unknown, carries -to Reviewer!s opinion- possible inaccuracies from the too much categories and these may originate from expected individual understanding differences of the farmers, despite authors’ attempts to explain the category differences to the attendants at the beginning of their data collection. Without an equally clearly understood category definition, the answers from the farmers might shift with more probability away from the best fitting category if for each direction three option are allowed, not only two, such as in the classical five levels Likert scale model (1932). At least a clear explanation of the differentiation between a (dis)agreement and a „total” (dis)agreement would be essential for the reader as well, so that one can understand, when an answer needed to be categorized into any of the „total” endpoints. Since without this, both the categories „agree” and „disagree” may involve a 100% decision making with no uncertainity in them any more, and make the „total” extention of these categories unnecessary.

Please briefly mention the used statistical tests and their results for checking normality in the manuscript as well, not only in your answers, given to Reviewer.

A few references that are less relevant / important for the topic, might be omitted.

Some inaccuracies still remained among the references. Therefore, please carefully re-check all. E.g:

Ref. 46: Please use the full surname of all coauthors and do not abbreviate that. This coauthor is included in your recent manuscript as well (G. Mészáros)

Ref. 52: … Afr. J. Agric Resour. Econ. …

Ref. 56: … Am. J. Agric. Econ. …

Ref. 60 …Addis Ababa: ICARDA….(please use space)

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

COMMENTS TO AUTHORS

GENERAL COMMENT

The Authors have certainly made a good job by incorporating many of the changes proposed. Nonetheless, there are still very serious concerns about the usage of the English language including syntax, grammar, repetitions other than a mixture of American and British English turning into lack of consistency. Wordiness is still a big concern throughout the entire MS, which would greatly benefit from a thorough revision of the English language. It is clear not only that the Authors did not get it reviewed by a native speaker – as I had warmly suggested – but also that the Authors were quite sketchy in reviewing it. Indeed, there are some passages that are so badly written that I could not even understand them. The Authors will find my corrections and suggestions (which, once again, I warmly recommend to accept) in the form of comments in the pdf. Once again, I renew my invitation to get a native speaker revising carefully the entire MS.

MINOR COMMENTS

Please, have a look at my comments in the pdf of the MS.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf