Empowering Resilience: The Impact of Farmer Field Schools on Smallholder Livestock Farmers’ Climate Change Perceptions in Raymond Local Municipality

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Regardless of the formulation of the general purpose of the research study (at the end of the main part of the Introduction), it would be worth writing what was the cognitive (scientific) purpose of the research and what was the utilitarian (practical) purpose of the study undertaken by the Authors.

Based on the review of the state of knowledge, it would be worth formulating the research problem - in the final part of the Introduction. You can write: "The research problem is ...". The research problem can be linked to the presentation of the gap in the current state of knowledge and the research area under consideration. The information needed to formulate the research problem and identify the gap in the current state of knowledge has been mostly presented in the Introduction. It just needs to be presented appropriately.

The main part of the Introduction chapter consists of only two paragraphs, but these paragraphs are very long. Therefore, this part of the Introduction is difficult to read. I suggest dividing very long paragraphs into shorter paragraphs. They can end with the formulation of the research problem, the research gap, and the purpose (or purposes) of the research.

I would like to ask about the spelling of the main concept presented in the article. In some places it is Farmer Field Schools, and in other places (in the middle of a sentence): Farmer field schools or farmer field schools. It would be a good idea to standardize this spelling. The same remark regarding the standardization of spelling applies to acronyms. In some places in the article the authors write FFS, and in other places FFSs. If Farmer Field Schools is some kind of idea, it should have the same spelling throughout the article.

The method of citing publications in the article requires adjustment to the requirements of the journal Sustainability.

In the article it would be a good idea to show the connection of the presented research with sustainability. In the text the authors did not use the word Sustainability once, and only three times in the text did they include the word sustainable. And this is not about the number of words related to sustainability used, but how the conducted research and the research problem solved fit into the problems of sustainability or sustainable development.

Table 1 (on page 7) provides information about the questions and answers in the questionnaire / survey. The following answer options were included: agree / disagree. In this case I have a question (doubt): Why was the answer: no opinion / difficult to determine clearly not taken into account? Could it have only been answered: agree / disagree? What was the reason for the lack of an answer option other than "agree / disagree"? You can certainly guess this, but it is worth explaining.

Before conducting the survey, was preliminary research conducted on a smaller population of people to check whether the questions were understandable, did not raise any doubts and there were no problems with their interpretation? Such preliminary research allows for improving the content of the survey, the way the questions were formulated, the range of possible answers to choose from, or to include additional questions as a result of conversations with interested people.

I would like to ask what criteria were used to select respondents for the study. It would be worth writing about the process of recruiting respondents / farms for the study. What was the initial number of farms that were included in the study? Were the studies conducted on a larger number of farms and some of the response questionnaires were not suitable for further analysis? In my opinion, it is worth writing about such details of the research and problems that need to be solved. Such information could be a contribution to planning further research in the future.

In the chapter presenting the research methodology, the authors mentioned the use of the Likert scale. In my opinion, it would be worth writing something more about the Likert scale and the principles of its use. Especially since the most common use is the 5-point and 7-point Likert scale. However, the Authors used basically only a 2-point Likert scale, which is rather rare in research, so it would be good to justify the approach to own research using the Likert scale. In my opinion, it was better to use a 5-point Likert scale in the conducted study, which would involve formulating the issues proposed in the questionnaire in such a way that respondents could use a wider scale of answers than just agree / disagree.

The article contains two Tables 1, on page 7 and page 8. It would be worth correcting the numbering of the Tables.

The article contains two Figures 1, on page 4 and page 11. It would be worth correcting the numbering of the Figures. In addition, the Figure on page 5 has no caption.

The publications in References are listed chaotically. This is not an alphabetical list of the authors of the publications, and the order of publications in the list is random.

For example, I checked one of the publications cited in the text (on page 9): Fenji and Scholes, 2022. Unfortunately, I did not find this publication in References. So I suggest checking whether all the articles cited in the text are in References and vice versa. 

Author Response

Review Report Form

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

Quality of English Language

(x) I am not qualified to assess the quality of English in this paper.
( ) The English is very difficult to understand/incomprehensible.
( ) Extensive editing of English language required.
( ) Moderate editing of English language required.
( ) Minor editing of English language required.
( ) English language fine. No issues detected.

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the research design, questions, hypotheses and methods clearly stated?
Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Is the article adequately referenced?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature?	( )	(x)	( )	( )

Please see details in the attachment

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work is original and interesting for the object but it is necessary  an improvement with several interventions on text, tables, figures, etc.

- in the Introduction some basic concepts for the motivations of the research are repeated too many times. Try to give greater synthesis and effectiveness to the concepts

- in the Methodology it would be useful to have some more information on the species bred and on the characteristics of the livestock farming systems. Some inaccuracies in the language and formatting of the text need to be corrected. 

- Figure 1 does not allow us to frame the geo region (a map that better identifies at a geographical level would be useful)

- 2.2? maybe is Figure 2? missing caption?

- in Table 1 there are many inaccuracies on the total percentages (total different from 100)

- check and correct Figure 1

- control editing of the list of bibliographical references

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

please check English language

Author Response

Review Report Form

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

Quality of English Language

( ) I am not qualified to assess the quality of English in this paper.
( ) The English is very difficult to understand/incomprehensible.
( ) Extensive editing of English language required.
(x) Moderate editing of English language required.
( ) Minor editing of English language required.
( ) English language fine. No issues detected.

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the research design, questions, hypotheses and methods clearly stated?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Is the article adequately referenced?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature?	( )	(x)	( )	( )

Please see details in the attachment

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Publications included in References require more detailed description and adjustment to the Editors' requirements. For example, publication 43 provides authors, article title, number and doi, but does not provide the name of the journal. Therefore, I suggest that you review References thoroughly, make any necessary corrections and additions. 

Author Response

Publications included in References require more detailed description and adjustment to the Editors' requirements. For example, publication 43 provides authors, article title, number and doi, but does not provide the name of the journal. Therefore, I suggest that you review References thoroughly, make any necessary corrections and additions. 

Response from the Author:

43. Weddington, Birte, Jorge and Martina . 2014. Farmer field schools for improving farming practices and farmer outcomes in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews. Open Access. 10(6) DOI:1002/cl2.90.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In my opinion, all my revision and integration indications were implemented.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In my opinion, all my revision and integration indications were implemented. 

Response from the Author: Thank you