Articulating Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals: Serbia Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the front there is a manuscript with title Articulating Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals: Serbia Case Study

The manuscript is well but has some weakness

Title is well

Abstract: Authors must follow the standard steps for writing the abstract (aim, material, results and conclusion) also, results in the abstracts need some explained results and data not like you present in the abstract

Key words: write more key words

Introduction:  for introduction i see there is a huge cited references without any diagnosis for the problem the manuscript is working with. Authors must firstly add some information about the problem in Serbia then present how they will solve this problem by this review.

Material: move first sentence lines 103 and 104 to the introduction part

Results: Well-presented but has some deficits it need more focus for how much organic farming during coming years will help for sustainable development , also , what’s the benefits will come over to develop the sustainable production in Serbia during coming years.

Discussions. There was no discussion included in the manuscript.  

conclusion is well written.

Author Response

In the front there is a manuscript with title Articulating Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals: Serbia Case Study

The manuscript is well but has some weakness

AUTHORS: Thank you for taking the time to provide useful suggestions. We appreciate your insight.

Title is well

AUTHORS: Thank you for your opinion on the manuscript title.

Abstract: Authors must follow the standard steps for writing the abstract (aim, material, results and conclusion) also, results in the abstracts need some explained results and data not like you present in the abstract

AUTHORS:In the revised version of the manuscript the abstract was changes to better reflect the manuscript structure and expanded with some additional sentences as well.

Key words: write more key words

AUTHORS:Thank you for this suggestion. Additional key words were added.

Introduction:  for introduction i see there is a huge cited references without any diagnosis for the problem the manuscript is working with. Authors must firstly add some information about the problem in Serbia then present how they will solve this problem by this review.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this comment. In the revised version we follow the suggestion and insert new text stressing the problem and elucidate on how to approach to the identified problem. Also we try to stress how the global problem was crated and then downscaled to the national level were some sustainable issues became more evident and challenging particularly for primary producers - farmers. In realty we believe that there is a week ling between primary producers and SDGs. In addition to that some paragraph and sentences were deleted for introduction to be more focus on the examined topic. Some paragraph in the introduction were reordered.

Material: move first sentence lines 103 and 104 to the introduction part

AUTHORS: Corrected

Results: Well-presented but has some deficits it need more focus for how much organic farming during coming years will help for sustainable development , also , what’s the benefits will come over to develop the sustainable production in Serbia during coming years.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. The author’s try to answer that question in the manuscript and some additional sentences were added in the manuscript to clarify the ideas and future prospect. The fact is that climate, politics and economy that drive the change in food production are very unpredictable. The local economy or agriculture depends on the global situation, driven by the interests of big players over which farmers have no control. 

Discussions. There was no discussion included in the manuscript. 

AUTHORS: Thank you for this comment. The discussion was meant to be integrated into the chapter with results and the name of this section was changes accordingly and additional references and discussion on selected topic was added also.

conclusion is well written.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this comment.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The review paper titled: “Articulating Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals: Serbia Case Study” aims to elucidate how Serbia fits into global context of Sustainable Development Goals and local realization of sustainable practices (organic agriculture) and how to articulate development in Serbia in delivering and mainstreaming sustainable agriculture. The paper is clear and presented in a well-structured manner. The cited references are relevant. The conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented. The statements are adequate. In my opinion, the paper may be reconsidered after minor revision.

Specific comments:

Line 40: “connfrontation” should be changed to “confrontation”

AUTHORS: Thank you for this comment and we change it in the main document

Line 112: ”ASEAN“ should be defined

AUTHORS: Changed abbreviation defined

Line 119: The text should refer to literature without the authors' names. Only numbers in brackets.

AUTHORS: Corrected

Line 170: “km2” should be changed to “km2”

AUTHORS: Corrected

Line 177: “44.33%” should be changed to “44.3%”

AUTHORS: Corrected

178: “EU”. Abbreviation should be defined the first time it appears in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the abbreviation should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.

AUTHORS: Corrected

Line 187: I suggest changing “&” to “and”

AUTHORS: Changed

Line 194: “MAFWM, [45].” Should be changed to “(MAFWM) [45]”.

AUTHORS: Changed

Line 247: “counties”? Please, check it.

AUTHORS: Changed

Line 331: There is no reference to Figure 3 in the text. I suggest removing Fig. 3.

AUTHORS: This table was created by authors for the purpose of study and has not been publish elsewhere of before that why there is no source.

Line 348: Data on the area of organic farming in Serbia is presented both in Figure 2 and Table 2. The review applies to Serbia (as in the tittle “Serbia Case study”) and not to the other Balkan countries shown in Table 2. Table 2 can be replaced with a new figure and data for Serbia can be presented.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion, I agree that there is an overlap with Figure 2 and Table 2. The aim of Figure 2 is to show the dynamics of the growth of the area under organic agriculture in Serbia since the beginning of its monitoring. On the other hand, the table compares the situation in Serbia with the neighboring countries that have similar agro-ecological conditions and potentials for organic agriculture. In addition, some of the listed countries were part of the former Yugoslavia and during 50 years they shared the same fate in agriculture. That's why we thought it was necessary to point out the differences in organic agriculture that have existed in the last 20 years. Generally we believe that differences occurred during the last 20 years so we believe that it would be meaningful to show that economical settings, socio-economical background or agricultural heritage could play a significant role in organic agriculture development and potential for establishing relation with SDG. 

Line 439: Please add the source for Table 3.

AUTHORS: This table has no source it is an original created for this manuscript

Line 455: Table 3 or Table 4? Please check it.

AUTHORS: Corrected

Line 455: Remove the dot (“.”) after the word “conditions”.

AUTHORS: Corrected

Line 455: “counties”? Please, check it.

AUTHORS: Corrected

I propose to write more about the conditions of agricultural production in Serbia and the

characteristics of organic farming.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark, we amend the section with results and discussion adding some new information on organic farming/SDG in Serbia hope that this will be sufficiently informative for readers. Also some section was deleted LINE 295-314; LINE 334-343

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I consider your work to be very well written, which shows your experience in the scientific field of ecological and sustainable agricultural production. Apart from minor spelling errors, I have no objections to your work and I recommend it for publication. 

Best regards!

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

AUTHORS: Thank you for the fine details and you suggest changing in the manuscript and opinion given about our work.  

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The abstract should be written in such a way as to attract the reader.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark; we try to make it more appealing for the readers. Some sentence were deleted and new sentences were added.

The introduction should also include an overview of the article's main structure.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. The introduction was also changed and some new literature source was added, to make it clear. Some part of introduction was deleted to better reflect the objectives of this study. Section that was added is LINE 124-132 

Figure 2 The source is missing.

AUTHORS: The figure was created by the authors based on the data obtained from Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Water Management (MAFWM)

Figure 3 Given that the figure is completely taken from another selection, is there permission from the author or institution from which the complete figure 3 is taken? Otherwise, the data in the tables and figures indicate that the author did not make a significant contribution, but rather it was taken from secondary sources without adequate scientific argumentation.

AUTHORS: In order to avoid any conflict of interest, Figure 3 will be deleted and instead of it, several sentences will be added to the text that will replace it. Figure 3 showed the total land use for agriculture as a possible precondition of organic agriculture area development. LINE 334-344.

Considering that there is neither a source mark nor a notation indicating that table 3

contains the authors' input, does it contain the researchers' contribution?

AUTHORS: “Table 3. Action needed at different level for articulating the SDG goals with organic agriculture “ is the authors synthesis how to overcame the gap between organic agriculture and SDG in Serbia in pursuit for sustainable development. It was not taken from other sources but created by the authors 

Table 4. No source is present!

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. We added the reference for this table

There is a poor presentation of the methodology. It appears that the material that was consulted lacks sufficient scientific justification and comprehension for its use in this work.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark. In this paper, we tried to find the most relevant data and sources that can serve to support the goal of this research. Of course, as a developing country, some data are not available, and some databases exist, but without reliable sources. That is why it is sometimes necessary to use data from foreign databases available literature etc. Generally we were guided by the fact that the most import is to use reliable sources and publish data.  

There is not enough justification for the findings. Both the content and the results

need to be clarified and updated.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark. Thanks for your opinion. Accordingly, we included new sources of literature and strengthened the discussion of the obtained results, inserted addition discussion. LINE 295-318; 453-463

Conclusions are very weak, there are no future research directions. It is important to

disclose the limits of the research and to offer a more detailed explanation of the

study's true scientific significance.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. In the conclusion the future prospect was added and clarified some statements.

It is essential to highlight the importance of research in practice.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree with your opinion

There should be more references included that are pertinent to the study question.

AUTHORS: Additional references were added and some references were deleted in total the number of reference was even lower.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors made only minor changes. The proposed changes have not been fully implemented.

Minor changes

Author Response

Dear reviewers and Editors of the Sustainability journal

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions which manuscript has been changed and hopefully improved and additional quality of our work was developed. After the reviewers' responses, we went through the entire text again, paying special attention to the suggestions of reviewer #4. According to them, we tried to complete the parts that he thought were not sufficiently implemented. In addition, new references have been added, and we hope that this time our submission will meet the requirements and suggestions of the reviewers. The references have been re-checked and only those relevant to the content have remained, taking care to avoid self-citation. To maintain the originality of our manuscript, we have rewritten some sections as suggested by the editor in a separate letter.

RESPONSE TO THE REVIEWER 4.

Comments

The abstract should be written in such a way as to attract the reader.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark; we try to make it more appealing for the readers. Some sentences were deleted and new sentences were added. After this revision only 2 sentences from the original manuscript remain, so it can be said that almost 90% of the abstract has been changed.

The introduction should also include an overview of the article's main structure.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. The introduction was also changed and some new literature source was added, to make our presentation clearer. Some part of the introduction was deleted to reflect the objectives of this study better and to gain focus. We also try to emphasize how the global problem in agriculture was created and after it was downscaled to the national level were some sustainability issues are more evident and challenging, especially for primary producers - farmers. In reality, we believe that there is a gap between primary producers and the SDGs which is not sufficiently recognized. Sections deleted in version 1 are LINES 41-61; 70-73; 103-105; 143-150. The section that was added version 2 LINE 124-132 

Figure 2 The source is missing.

AUTHORS: The figure was created by the authors based on the data obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Water Management (MAFWM) note added to the Figure title

Figure 3 Given that the figure is completely taken from another selection, is there permission from the author or institution from which the complete figure 3 is taken? Otherwise, the data in the tables and figures indicate that the author did not make a significant contribution, but rather it was taken from secondary sources without adequate scientific argumentation.

AUTHORS: Agree with the suggestion. To avoid any conflict of interest, Figure 3 is deleted and instead of it, several sentences are added to the text that will replace it marked with different color. Figure 3 showing that the total land use for agriculture as a precondition for organic agriculture area development. LINE 334-344.

Since there is neither a source mark nor a notation indicating that Table 3 contains the authors' input, does it contain the researchers' contribution?

AUTHORS: “Table 3. Action needed at different levels for articulating the SDG goals with organic agriculture “ is the author's synthesis of how to overcome the gap between organic agriculture and SDG in Serbia in pursuit of sustainable development. It was not taken from other sources but created by the authors as an original contribution.  

Table 4. No source is present!

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. We added the reference for this table

There is a poor presentation of the methodology. It appears that the material that was consulted lacks sufficient scientific justification and comprehension for its use in this work.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark. In this paper, we tried to find the most relevant data and sources that can serve to support the goal of this research. Of course, as a developing country, some data are not available, and some data exist, but without reliable sources. That is why it is sometimes necessary to use data from foreign databases available literature, etc. Generally, we were guided by the fact that the most important thing is to use reliable sources and publish data. Also in the methodology, some data were changed and updated.  

There is not enough justification for the findings. Both the content and the results need to be clarified and updated.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this remark. Thanks for your opinion. Accordingly, we included new sources of literature and strengthened the discussion of the obtained results, inserting addition discussion. LINE 295-318; 453-463, change and rephrase some paragraphs in the manuscript. They are marked with different colors.

Conclusions are very weak, there are no future research directions. It is important to disclose the limits of the research and to offer a more detailed explanation of the study's true scientific significance.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. In the conclusion, the future prospect was added and clarified some statements.

It is essential to highlight the importance of research in practice.

AUTHORS: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree with your opinion

There should be more references included that are pertinent to the study question.

AUTHORS: Additional references were added and some references were deleted in total the number of references was lower compared with the V1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

The most of suggestions are respected, only the conclusion should be more extensive.

Minor corrections.

Author Response

Dear editors and reviewers.

Thank you once again for the useful advice and suggestions. In accordance with them, we reworked and expanded the conclusions of our work to better reflect the key results of the work. We are at your disposal if any further corrections and additions are needed

Thank you in advance