Case Study Analysis on Agri-Food Value Chain: A Guideline-Based Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

-       The title of the manuscript is interesting. But the content is not well presented.

-       The abstract is poorly written.

-       Section 2: line 94-98: definition of value chain may not be needed here repeatedly

-       line 102-113: These three paragraphs should be reduced to one and let it be concise

-       Figure 2.1 should be well presented or better represented. At present it’s not interlinked or relating to each other.

-       I did not see much of the economic analysis results output. So, this look much of economic analysis concept?

-       create a separate column for the numbered references in Table 3.1

-       The conclusion should be precise and well summarize.

-       Update the references

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

All recommendations were attempted to be corrected according to referee comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This research could be an interesting summary of tools applied in most used Value Chain Guidelines and a meta-analysis of studies applying such tools, which would contribute to inform current methodology applied in VC studies as well as identification of literature gaps. However, the form the manuscript is written is confusing, and methodology is convoluted. A thorough reorganization of the contents is needed.

Specific comments and suggestions:

Typo on line 211? There are other cases where capital letters are misused, please review.

There are several cases where “the”, “as” are misused, please review. I also recommend using “and” instead of “&” for a more formal style.

In section 2: Conceptual Framework of Value Chain Analysis, generic categories of primary and supportive activities are provided. It is not clear why authors are defining these categories as the conceptual framework if this classification is not used in the remaining of the analysis.  The same applies to the role of figures 2.1 to 2.4. Were those models meant to define the study framework? Overall, introduction and conceptual framework does not seem to describe actual framework nor support results.

Figure 5.1 does not contribute to the manuscript. It is relevant to mention but no need to illustrate. It is expected that these studies would focus on cereals, vegetables and fruits given the keywords used in the selection “agri-food on product groups such as, cereals, fruit and permanent crops, vegetables, legumes, tubers and oily crops”.

Lines 337 to 339, no need to number activities. Numbering used in the paragraph from line 357, and in many other parts of the manuscript, actually, is very confusing and unnecessary.

It seems that 204 was the total number of cases studied, from which 24% were focused on social aspects of VC, therefore about 48-49 studies. How does that fit into figures 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10?  

Author Response

All recommendations were attempted to be corrected according to referee comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction

The introduction is rather short but still quite messy and hard to read.  First of all, the main message the introduction is trying to convey is not clear. The introduction lacks proper motivation for choosing the research topic and many other important elements of the introduction are missing. In particular, the introduction does not clearly explain what, why and how the Authors are trying to study. The main goal of the paper and research hypotheses are not clearly described. The structure of the paper is missing. Therefore, I would propose to restructure the introduction according to the following more usual format:

- Overview and Motivation

- Problem Statement

- Objectives of the Study

- Research Contribution

- Research Questions and the Methodology the study applies

- Key Findings of the Study

- The Structure of the Paper

Literature review

The paper has no proper literature review section. The introduction contains references to some papers but many of them are not very new. Moreover, it is not clear how these papers are related to each other and to the current work. Generally, the paper is underrefferenced. Therefore, a separate literature review section needs to be created that would offer detailed and extensive review of previous studies. Finally, at the end of the literature review section the value added of the paper must be clearly discussed against the previous studies.

Theoretical framework

The section with the theoretical background is missing which makes the interpretation of results difficult. The paper does not propose any research hypotheses that could be tested empircally. 

Methodology

The approach employed in the paper is purely descriptive and does not go beyond the simple description of facts. The paper lacks  any attempts to move beyond simple descriptive statistics and use more sophisticated research methods.

Conclusions

The specific policy recommendations and limitations of the applied approach are missing.

Author Response

All recommendations were attempted to be corrected according to referee comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper analysis the current framework of agri-food value chain tools by analyzing the existing instruments for policy implementation, simulation, optimization, databases for value chain management.

The manuscript should be carefully reviewed, clarifications and additions are necessary.

The main results obtained must be highlighted in the abstract.

Define abbreviations and acronyms the first time they are used in the text, including in the abstract.

Line 29: “… 200 VC …”.

Line 50: “… implimentation …”.

Line 77: “… GTZ/GIS …”.

The authors' contributions are not clear.

The conclusions should be rewritten and more focused on the results obtained and not just general discussion.

Author Response

All recommendations were attempted to be corrected according to referee comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The article “Case Study Analysis on Agri-Food Value Chain: A Guideline-Based Approach”, refers to an important and current problem covering the tools of value chain analysis that have been applied by researchers from 2000.

The authors of the article reviewed and standardized 14 different guidelines which are generally accepted and widely used with their tools and indicators to analyse the results of 204 case studies in this context.  The article is of a review character.

The authors defined the purpose of the research as assessing the current framework of agri-food value chain tools by analysing the existing instruments for policy implementation, simulation, optimization, databases for value chain management.

Strengths of this study:

-     the topic of the paper is important,

-     the applied methods are adequate for the purpose of the research,

-     the research results were presented clearly,

-     the tables and figures have been carefully compiled,

-     the paper is easy to read.

Suggestions to improve article:

    1.          The purpose of the research was formulated differently in the Abstract and in the Introduction. This should be harmonized and adapted to the actual purpose of the research.

    2.          The temporal scope of the research should be specified in the Abstract.

    3.          The space context analysed in the article case studies on agri-food value chain should be determined in the Abstract or in the section 3. Materials and Research Methodology. There is no information about it.

    4.          In the section 3. Materials and Research Methodology the authors should:

-       provide details of how they identified “mostly used guidelines on value chain analysis (table 3.1).

-       describe in detail the method of reviewing the case studies, which represents the number of articles in the database and the entire process of selecting and excluding studies.

    5.          It is recommended to add Discussion section with information about the limitations of the research  and opportunities for future studies. It would be also worth writing about the benefits that the obtained research results could bring to various stakeholders.

    6.          I would recommend the authors to connect their investigation with sustainable food matters in the Abstract, Introduction and Discussion sections.

    7.          The bibliographic review is not complete, it contains only 22 items. The list of the literature should be supplemented. This will allow the authors to extend their considerations contained in the sections: Introduction and Conceptual Framework of Value Chain Analysis.

In my opinion this paper qualifies to be published in the Journal of Sustainability with theses major modifications.

Author Response

All recommendations were attempted to be corrected according to referee comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

You can still improve on the manuscript.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable contribution and comments. Some revisions were made to the introduction and conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is looking much better, I just have one last comment. The word "case" has been introduced several times in the article, but it is not clear if it refers to a single case as it is spelled on singular form or if it means one numbered instance.  Please clarify in the text. 

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable contribution and  comments. Required explanations were added to the introduction and material method section. The word "case" refers each individual case (204 case).

Reviewer 3 Report

I have made a number of comments in my previous review that were largely ignored. In particular, the paper does not employ any scientific methods and does not go beyond pure description. Moreover, it does not have the structure of the academic paper.  

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable contribution and comments. We had previously edited the introduction taking your comments into account. But now, we have revised the introduction in more detail, again according to your previous suggestion.

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper can still be improved.

The conclusions should focus on the results obtained and not just general discussions. You should use values to justify statements in the conclusions.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable contribution and comments. The values are added in the conclusion.

Reviewer 5 Report

Accept in present form

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable contribution and comments.