Cultural Capital of Sea Salt Farming in Ban Laem District of Phetchaburi Province as per the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Your work is important in terms of aiming at a topic on the importance of traditional production methods, which are a reflection of our cultural identity, and the necessity of preserving them. Especially in the new world order (globalization and uniform culture), preserving and keeping these cultural values (cultural diversity) alive is necessary for a healthy social life and society.

Point 1	Line 13	Please specify the long form of the abbreviations SWOT and TOWS.
Point 2	Line 31-33	Please indicate the reference you provide in the references in the text. The references mentioned in the references should be stated as [1] in the manuscript according to the journal rules and if the same reference will be used later, it should be indicated with this symbol. Check your other references this way as well.
Point 3	Line 45-46	Please include a reference to this statement, if any.
Point 4	Line 59-61	Please include a reference to this statement, if any.
Point 5	Line 49-52	This section should be given in the material method section.
Point 6	Line 128-151	It may be appropriate to give the flow of the study after the purpose is emphasized at the end of the introduction, but there is no need for explanations regarding the material and method part of the study.
Point 7	Line 159, 539	Tables, figures, etc. sources used as references in the study should be presented in the closest position to the sentence in which they are emphasized, right after they are highlighted in the text.
Point 8	Line 12, 32, 166	For a long statement in the text (such as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, GIAHS), continue to use the abbreviation form of that statement in the rest of the text.
Point 9	Line 241-243	Please indicate the reference for the information given.
Point 10	Line 1088	The conclusion is almost as long as the discussion section. This section provides a brief and concise description of the problem, the purpose of the study, the findings of the study, and finally the conclusions and recommendations based on the available data. In addition, recommendations are also presented in a topic.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank the authors for the submission of the manuscript entitled “Cultural Capital of Sea Salt Farming in Ban Laem District of Phetchaburi Province as per the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)”. The study aimed to explore the cultural capital and value systems tied to sea salt farming in Ban Laem District within the context of the GIAHS, examine the challenges and opportunities for preserving such cultural capital, and analyze the roles of local organizations in supporting and nurturing these cultural values. The author clearly introduced the objectives of this study and revealed policy implications based on their research findings. Although some novel ideas are presented, I have some comments for the authors to improve the manuscript.

(1) Section 2.3: Please remove the highlighting from the text in this section.

 

(2) The Literature Review section is a bit long, so could you please shorten this section by only focusing on descriptions that are highly related to the objectives of your research?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The abstract is missing the statement problem, which should be the first sentence of the abstract. This first sentence is to explain why you have done this study, and what gave you the hint that the study was needed. I suggest starting the abstract with something like:
Traditional sea salt farmers in the Ban Laem District of Phetchaburi Province in Thailand face a range of challenges, including a decline in sea salt prices, a reduction in the area dedicated to sea salt farming, and a lack of younger farmers to continue the tradition, which threaten the sustainability of the industry. One strategy to address these challenges is to include sea salt farming within the framework of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), which has been shown in other contexts to bring a range of benefits to communities, but acceptance into GIAHS requires demonstration that the agricultural system is deeply rooted in the cultural heritage and traditions of local communities and has a significant impact on the social fabric of the community. This study delves into the cultural capital, value systems, and social organizations in sea salt farming with a research methodology that included qualitative tools such as in-depth interviews, SWOT and TOWS analysis, and focus group discussions with key stakeholders like salt farmers, community leaders, local government officials, and scholars.

Line 25: I would replace 'aim to ensure' with something like 'contribute to'. This softening of the statement would allow other ideas to flow into the discussion in the future.

Line 63: I suggest replacing 'align with economic and social desideratum' with 'promote desirable economic and social outcomes'.

Lines 87 and 88: This definition needs a reference.

Line 103: accounted

Line 105: was, rather than is

Lines 164-169: This paragraph is not really necessary.

Line 206: This sentence is a bit odd. The first half refers to the specific example of Xuanhua in China, and the last half is general background information about the GIAHS framework. I suggest moving the second half of the sentence to earlier in the section (I would put it in line 199).

Line 286: I think the phrase 'as evidenced by compelling evidence' is redundant.

Line 330: I would start a new section here. The previous section was about the history of salt production. This next section is about current techniques in salt production.

Line 341: These four paragraphs, which are mostly coloured in yellow, are quite confused and seem to describe the same process twice. I suggest revising these to have a paragraph giving an overview (currently mostly in paragraph three) followed by a paragraph describing the HDPE method, and another paragraph describing the traditional method.

Line 344: 'Unconventional' is the wrong word here. It could probably be replaced with 'new'. Throughout this section, I'd also replace 'conventional' with 'traditional'.

Line 370: This third paragraph should be the main part of what I suggest as a new first paragraph in this section to give an overview, and lead to the point that there are two production types: traditional and HDPE.

Line 421: This paragraph is made from parts that belong elsewhere, and most have been repeated. The first two sentences were already in the previous section, so can be deleted. The third sentence restates the aims, so can also be deleted. The sentence about the study area should be kept, but can be merged with the following paragraph. The last sentence is unecessary and can be deleted. We know you did a literature review as we have just read it.

Line 433: This first sentence in this paragraph belongs in the conclusions section. It's a comment on the value of the data the participants provided, rather than part of the description of what you did.

Line 448: This sentence about what the findings highlight also belongs in the conclusions section.

Line 451: I don't think you need colour photographs of the respondents for a scientific article. There is also the issue of privacy. I suggest removing them.

Line 456: replace 'observations' with 'data'.

Line 462: I suggest moving this sentence alongside the other sentence about non-participant observation.

Line 465: The word 'important' is not necessary. If it wasn't important, you wouldn't have included it in the survey.

Line 487: This paragraph restates the aims, which is not really necessary. We know the aims from the introduction. I suggest moving the phrase: "formulation of these questions is based on the concepts proposed by Leepanyaporn and Wongcha-um et al. [39,40]" to line 465, and deleting the rest of the paragraph.

Line 488: I'm not sure what you mean with 'potential' aspects.

Line 489: You don't need the word 'valuable'.

Line 495: I suggest moving this sentence to around line 461.

Line 497: This is the methodology section. It's about what you did. Please delete the sentence that you conclude with policy recommendations. Firstly, it was already in the introduction. Secondly, it doesn't really need saying. I suggest you delete this sentence.

Line 498: I sincerely doubt that the study adhered to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. The full title of that document is Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. This was not medical research. For example, section 12 of the Helsinki Declaration states that "Research...requires the supervision of a competent and appropriately qualified physician or other health care professional". I suggest you delete the first half of this sentence.

Line 503: This is a repeat of the sentence in line 455. I think you can easily delete this sentence and the next sentence.

Line 605: Retinue? I don't understand how this word can fit here.

Line 610: The word 'inaugural' is unnecessary.

Line 612: 6-10 months to a year is the same as 6 months to a year.

Line 613: indication of the salt's complete dryness.

Line 615: This sentence states that the culture of salt scraping and salt carrying gives rise to the culture of salt scraping and carrying. It doesn't make sense. Instead, you could write: "Figure 4 (C and D, respectively) illustrates the traditional sea salt harvesting practices in the Ban Laem District of Phetchaburi, which have given rise to a distinct local culture known as the "Culture of Salt Scraping and Salt Carrying."

Line 696: This process has already been described at around line 350.

Line 824: delete 'scrape'.

Line 930: I feel that the SWOT analysis is identifying factors that you have already found. I know you have done a lot of work here, but I think you could drop the entire SWOT and TOWS parts and just draw conclusions, propose strategies, and make recommendations from what you have already. The new text, from line 997 to 1027, is anyway repeated in the conclusions section, which is where I think it should be.

Line 1035: This sentence repeats the previous sentence.

Line 1042: 'who' rather than 'which'.

Section 6.2: It's just a personal preference, but I would rather these dot points to be written in text paragraphs.

 

The quality of the English was okay, but there were some mistakes. My main issue is with the repetition. I think the article should have been proofread to find these prior to submission.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Sir,

Thank you for inviting me to review this paper. After reviewing this, I think that the paper has attempted the Cultural Capital of Sea Salt Farming in Ban Laem District of Phetchaburi Province as per the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). This is a typical case in Thailand and can show the important findings or recommendations to other areas. I think that the methodology is quite acceptable. Further, the findings can support for the objectives that are quite clear.

I have some comments for improving this paper as follows:

1/ The introduction should summarize the main findings of this paper.

2/ The Conceptual Framework of the Research should be summarized from the previous evidence or studies.

3/ The data should show the time of doing the research. When?

4/ The characteristics of the data should be further discussed in Section 3.2 Data analysis.

5/ I think that the area of doing this research is quite limitted. Therefore, the limitations of this study should be mentioned.

Thank you

A minor revision

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for taking the comments into consideration. To my taste, there is still quite a lot of repetition, but I can understand why you want to keep the text that you have.

There are a few typos here and there. Probably the most common is to add a hyphen in words, such as 'cur-rent', be-fore', and 'trans-portation'. They don't affect the comprehension, but you could change them if you felt like it.

Apart from the repetition, the quality of English usage is fine. It's a bit colloquial in some places, but that is okay.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Sir

I agree with this.

Thank you