Roadmap for National Adoption of Blockchain Technology Towards Securing the Food System of Qatar
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I suggest an extensive rewriting and editing of this paper is carried out. It is difficult to read due to the way the sections have been arranged.
Also work on grammatical errors.
I have pointed out a few areas of improvement here, however your revision should must be more holistic and concise.
reprimand and penalize faulty or unlawful practices. The various bodies…. line 59- fix grammatical errors- reprimanding and ….
Are figures 1 and 2 authors conceptualization, if yes, state so or reference as the case may be
We concur that decentralized distributed ledger technology is a legitimate substitute or .. line 90-. Is this a synonym for BCT? If so, make it clear this is a synonym earlier given that you have been using Blockchain technology before this switch to this term.
Line 176 AUM- say what the acronym means first before using it as a standalone term. I see you have a list at the end but that is not enough. Readers need to understand what they are reading
Why does this appear in the manuscript?- Materials and Methods should be described with sufficient details to allow others to 297 replicate and build on published results. Please note that publication of your manuscript 298 implicates that you must make all materials, data, computer code, and protocols associated 299 with the publication available to readers. Please disclose at the submission stage any 300 restrictions on the availability of materials or information. New methods and protocols 301 should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and 302 appropriately cited. 303
Line 560- ‘country’s food’?????
‘Typically, the 569 term "governance" refers to a system of government in which private economic players and 570 some segments of civil society participate in the formulation, administration, and execution 571 of policies [55](Mayntz, 1998). One of the most critical research works with regards to 572 food security in Qatar was done by [56]Al-Ansari et al. (2017). His paper explains the 573 specifics and uses of the environmental assessment method for the energy, water, and food 574 (EWF) nexus and exemplifies its use in Qatar using a particular food security case study. 575 In this study, the EWF Nexus tool is used to evaluate the many choices for attaining a 576 hypothetical goal of 40% food self-sufficiency in Qatar by dissecting a future food network 577’
This part makes no sense- you began talking about governance abruptly with no link to it even in the subsequent sentences
The conclusion should wrap up the key arguments in the paper without introducing new concepts but here, you go on and introduce concepts you do not mention in the boy of your work- types of market, individualism, groupism, to mention but a few terms
The organization of your paper is particularly poor moreso, the conclusion section.
I suggest you rewrite this paper to enhance flow. Discussion of the key elements of the Qatari food security policy should be done before any attempts to showcase the role BCT is playing/can play
editing required
Author Response
Kindly find attached.
Thank you for your time and efforts during the first review process. Looking forward to any clarifications.
Regards
William George
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors deal with a current topic, which should be further explored with specific studies and other case studies. The paper has a good structure and the authors argue the topic well in many aspects.
I suggest small additions:
-Did the authors ask themselves research questions/hypotheses which they answered when discussing the results/conclusions? I did not detect this important step in the introductory phase, above all in the case of Qatar food system. (Figure 3 gives a general organization of the research only)
-The sources are missing in the figures, please insert them (example source:
the authors, etc.)
- Little visibility is given (paragraph 6) to the case study of the food system in Qatar. I believe it is also appropriate to integrate it from the point of view of future findings relating to the adoption of blockchain technology.
-I recommend integrating the references as some are dated. The work lends itself to many citations which at the moment are few.
I wish the authors good luck with their research.
Author Response
Kindly find attached.
Thank you for your time and efforts during the first review process. Looking forward to any clarifications.
Regards
William George
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The structure of manuscript is illegible. The text is written in fragments in the active voice; for scientific publications, the passive voice should be used. The manuscript describes many aspects that are the basis for systemic management, both in terms of quality and organizational management. Most of the aspects described (communication, cooperation, decision-making) are key aspects in ISO standards that have been in force for many years. The features of the novelty are described in point 7 Conclusion which should be very synthetic and not as extensive as in the case of a revised manuscript
not using the correct form of verbs ( should be passive voice)
Author Response
Kindly find attached.
Thank you for your time and efforts during the first review process. Looking forward to any clarifications.
Regards
William George
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This is an excellent paper, well researched and conceptualized. It is also cutting edge in consideration for food security and block chain. A few points can be improved for example, given FAO is used as the key reference for the definition, then the paper should also use the FAO four pillars for food security, not three as mentioned in the paper. This adds the concept of stability which is essential for food security. Also the value chain model does not reflect the environment as a key stakeholder in the process link - despite the later narrative on the importance of the EWF nexus. Bringing in the natural resource to generate the raw materials would be more in keeping with recent literature and brings in the importance of climate change that impacts on food systems. There are minor editorial issues such as figure/table numbering and a few paragraphs that seem out of context.
Quality of narrative is excellent.
Author Response
Kindly find attached.
Thank you for your time and efforts during the first review process. Looking forward to any clarifications.
Regards
William George
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
The article is interesting but needs improvement. In several places, the authors mention Appendix 2 (with a literature review) but ultimately do not include it. In many places, statements are made that require a bibliography. The figures do not have a source description. On the linguistic side, there is a problem of carelessness in the text (misused or omitted words, etc.). Lines 297-303 are unnecessary. There are no criteria for selecting the 80 items of literature that were analyzed (line 319) and there is no information on what database was used. There is no description of the limitations of the analysis performed and no scientific discussion of the observations made.
There is a problem of carelessness in the text (misused or omitted words, etc.).
Author Response
Kindly find attached.
Thank you for your time and efforts during the first review process. Looking forward to any clarifications.
Regards
William George
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Kindly do a final grammatical check as I still spotted a few.
Also check Line 586 – what figure no?
minor edits needed
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript was corrected and now is much more orderly and understandable.
the sentences could be shorter to improve the readability of the entire article
