Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Specific items to note:

Line 11 Common Agricultural Policy – and then use acronym

Line 16 – what is ‘last policy reform’ ? – put ‘the' before and maybe a few words to explain a bit more

Line 51 – ‘their reluctance to cooperate in the market and political sphere’ – need to elaborate a bit more

Line 79 ‘The final section concludes.’ – sentence incomplete

Line 125 – ‘After the collapse of the communist party and the centrally controlled economy,  Polish agriculture underwent a comprehensive transformation to . . . ‘ This may need more of a profile of agriculture in the Soviet era or even before, as a baseline to better understand contemporary post-Soviet era – crops, farms, markets etc. Just a brief paragraph, you have the space in terms of word count.

Line 179 – where is sub-heading 3.1?

Line 408 – explain a bit more this term in regards to your findings ‘structural dualism’ [big farms vs. smaller farms?]

Line 428 – is this growing competition in regards to international trade from imports into the EU or exports out of the EU of Polish farmers? – a bit more detail and commodities involved, perhaps mention earlier in the paper

General comments

• Well written, I
• Clear introduction
• Enjoyed the read as a non-specialist on EU and Polish agriculture sector
• Article may be too short
  • – can you expand on the farmers organizations and these movements? As with the request for more info on (pre)Soviet Polish agriculture, you have the space as the word count is not too long yet.
    • Related to the farmers organizations, any quotes or spokespeople to bring key actors into focus would strengthen the paper.
  • Is there a farmers co-operative sub-sector and if so what are its characteristics and attitudes towards the EU/CAP/Polish state?
• Requires clearer integration of your theoretical frame – collective action issues/outcomes - introduced in lines 96-101 to your findings. This can be done in the Discussion. And is the farming sector stronger or a more community via Polish state and CAP policies since joining the EU?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, the paper is interesting and I believe it contributes to the literature.  However, my assessment depends on the actual purpose of the paper.  The author states the paper is about analyzing farmers’ attitudes and implies this is based, at least in part, on empirical analysis (results of a public survey).  If this is the purpose then a great deal more work is needed to bring farmers’ attitudes to the foreground.  Alternatively, it appears to me that this paper is a review of political dynamics associated with three time periods related to Poland’s agricultural sector and CAP; farmers’ attitudes are secondary and only inferred rather than analyzed directly.  As a review, rather than empirical, fewer revisions are required to improve the merit of the paper.

My comments are organized by the questions presented above.

<Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic?>

It would be helpful to discuss briefly Poland’s situation compared to other countries, i.e., countries with similar experiences.

 

<Are the research design, questions, hypotheses and methods clearly stated?>

The purpose and scope of the paper needs to be clarified.  The author states the purpose as follows: “analyses farmers’ attitudes.”  This implies an empirical analysis of data collected from farmers, an approach that is supported by the (too brief) discussion of Methods and Materials.  However, after starting to read the Results, I see little evidence of analyzing farmers’ attitudes.  The paper reads more like a discussion/reflection paper focused on a review of political dynamics rather than  analysis of farmers’ attitudes. 

My confusion/concerns are highlighted, for example, by the name of section 3.2 “Selected effects of EU CAP for Polish agriculture and rural development: increasing living standards and activating the complex agricultural policy.”  This subject is not about farmers’ attitudes.

I suggest that, in this paper, farmers’ attitudes are secondary to the primary analysis of political dynamics.  Attitudes are only inferred from political actions.

The three time periods analyzed by the author must include dates to identify the time periods.

If this is an empirical study, the methods and materials section is far too brief.  More details are needed for the reader to be able to evaluate the quality of the research design.  At a minimum, three areas require further development:  (1) a detailed summary of the forty articles reviewed; (2) a comprehensive set of details of the public survey, e.g., more information about respondents, the questions analyzed; (3) methods used to analyze the data for both the surveys and content analysis.

 

<Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling?>

As noted above, I believe the focus of the paper is on political dynamics rather than directly and specifically on farmers’ attitudes.  The latter can only be inferred.  As such, concluding that farmers’ attitudes have changed seems overly simplified and not fully substantiated.  Rather, it seems the main purpose and conclusion of the paper is that there are three periods of political dynamics related to agriculture and CAP policy.

 

<For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?>

See comments/concerns above.

 

<Is the article adequately referenced?>

No.  All statements of fact in the Results must be referenced given that the stated purpose is to present what others have written.

 

<Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature?>

It depends, as per my concerns/confusion about the purpose of the paper.  If the author wants to analyze farmers’ attitudes then a more detailed study is required of these attitudes.  If the paper is revised as a review of three periods of CAP policy then the broader focus of the conclusion is supported by the evidence provided.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Polish famers and the European Union’s common Agricultural Policy: between affirmation and rejection.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper.

In this work, the author presents an organised review of the literature and some supporting statistics of regular opinion surveys to describe the evolution of farmers’ views relating to the EU CAP. The analysis presented is informative and coherent. The context and chronology are well described. But some small elements could be improved to strengthen the paper.

The first point is about presentation. While the chronology of event is well described, it would be most helpful to also illustrate it. Having a timeline with key events regarding the process of change away from central planning to key national reforms, to EU accession and CAP evolution could be represented on a timeline. In parallel, the main protest events could also be plotted, especially as it may clarify the relationship between reforms and protest: when do reforms trigger protests? when do protests trigger reforms? While this is explained in your analysis, a visual representation would be great. Finally, the extant Figure 1 could be incorporated in this timeline of event as a third parallel line, also placing these statistics in their temporal contexts more clearly.

The second point is methodologic. While I appreciate that you have conducted a thorough review of the literature, it would still be informative to give more information about how that review was conducted. If you carried out a systematic search, what were the relevant key words? If you did not, how are you sure your review is not biased? How did you deal with English language versus polish language sources? I suspect that the language creates a relative barrier and that English language articles may not always be citing relevant Polish work – so how did you work to ensure representation? Could you have missed other key works because they were published in a different language? What were your criteria for not including a paper in your review? Generally, providing more information of what it means for you concretely to be conducting a “scoping” review would also help.

The paper is overall well written but there are a few places where the use of article (the/a) should be revised. The paper would also be improved by including more definitions and making sure the terms used are disambiguated. For example, what are the countries included in the “other Central European Countries” (page 5)? What do you mean by “high-commodity entities” (also page 5)? Etc.

Typo in the description of Figure 1 page 7: price relations, not price ralations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the author's responses to my comments.  By choosing to focus on three periods of political dynamics, the author has improved the clarity, structure, and academic contribution of the paper.