Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors claimed that they highlighted the main insights from the available scientific literature about the interrelationships between the new trends in agriculture and sustainability by using a systematic literature review.

However, the manuscript is not ready for review and publication.
There are many grammatical errors and inconsistencies. 
Wrong citation and inappropriate citation formats were noticed. Figures 2 and 6 were used without proper citations.

I suggest that this review manuscript be submitted after proper preparation.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
Thank you for taking the time to comment on our paper.  Please find the responses in the attached document.
Kind regards
Ania Cravero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The text contains a large number of abbreviations, but there is no abbreviation description table.

Abstract

In lines 11–13, "... various problems such as... crops, seeds, animal research, land..." are mentioned. I believe the authors should write clearly about the problems encountered by these research objects. What the authors described in lines 150–153, for example, is clear.

Background

In lines 168–169, what does the content of figures 3 and 4 specifically illustrate? Please examine Figures 3 and 4 and provide a detailed description.

In Figures 3, 4, and 8, it is difficult for readers to see the corresponding quantity. I believe the authors should add specific data to these figures, as seen in Figure 15.

Methodology

Section 3 describes the methodology used to collect relevant papers for the study. What method do the authors employ in analyzing and summarizing these papers? Please supplement and analyze these papers' specific methods.

Results

In line 362 of 4.1.1 Farmer's Decision Making, the authors stated,"... And that has been solved by applying ML in big data systems..." However, it does not explain how farmers solve the three problems raised in the article in lines 363–375: How to reduce production costs? What measures should be taken to deal with the weather? How can production be increased? I suggest that the authors summarize and explain how to solve these issues.

In 4.1.2, according to the authors, crop management includes yield prediction, disease detection, web detection, crop quality, and species recognition (line 150). However, this paragraph does not exhaustively list all of the issues and their corresponding solutions.

Review articles should not merely summarize and reproduce the structure and experiments of previous articles. What matters is that the reviewers are capable of making systematic and comprehensive comments on these articles, particularly on the relationship between the industry's future research directions. The authors own opinions and language are not visible in some paragraphs and sentences of the article. For instance, in subsections 4.2 ML Techniques in Agricultural Big Data, lines 442-542, 4.4 Challenges in the Use of ML in Agricultural Big Data, lines 592-814, the authors only listed the relevant literature but did not summarize or comment on it.

Conclusions

The article's conclusion makes no new suggestions or comments on the industry's research. I suggest that the authors supplement their own statement about the direction of future research with a summary and predictions about some specific research topics.

Other issues to be addressed in the full text

The authors have to be meticulous in their attention to detail. For instance, in line 151, the punctuation in "Including yield prediction; disease detection..." should be ",". Figure 4 contains the caption " Figure 8 Machine learning models giving the best output," which should not be there. In line 856, the first letter of "relationship" should be capitalized.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
Thank you for taking the time to comment on our paper.  Please find the responses in the attached document.
Kind regards
Ania Cravero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Information technology especially the Big Data and Artificial Intelligence will play an important role in agriculture. This paper conducted a systematic literature review applying the PRISMA protocol and proposed the challenges involved in implementing machine learning in Agricultural Big Data.

There seems to be a lack of some useful refences like https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppx056 and https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2020.2998584. Such information should be included to facilitate readers to know your paper’s innovation compared with previous similar research.

There already existed some big data platform or systems in agriculture using ML, it’s suggested to be added to the paper and so as to analyse the application shortcoming and potential improvements in the future.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
Thank you for taking the time to comment on our paper.  Please find the responses in the attached document.
Kind regards
Ania Cravero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors reported that they have tried to respond in the best possible way.
Many grammatical errors and typos have been addressed.
However, the revised manuscript is not ready yet for publication. 
The manuscript still needs a grammar check because some of the corrections do not look appropriate.
Some of the citation references are in the inconsistent format (including reference 55) and incorrect (Wang et al - is it reference 62 or 65?).
And, regarding my comment on "Wrong citation and inappropriate citation formats were noticed. Figures 2 and 6 were used without proper citation," the authors responded with "We have added the corresponding citation in figure 2. Figure 6 does not have a citation because it is our own creation."
I am afraid to say that I strongly disagree with the authors.
Figure 2 in the manuscript looks like a modified figure of Figure 1 of reference 16. The authors cited references 9, 16, and 17 in P. 5 Line 161, however, it should be stated in Figure 2 that the figure was modified from reference 16.
Figure 6 in the manuscript looks like a graphic version of Table 1 of reference 28 because the texts are the same. Again, the authors cited reference 28 in P. 9 Line 259, however, it should be stated in Figure 6 that the figure was modified from reference 28 instead of claiming that it is their own creation. 

I have attached references 16 and 28 so that editors who are familiar with the journal citation rules can make an appropriate decision. 

I suggest that this manuscript be submitted after properly prepared. Because proper citation should be in top priority, especially for review papers.

Comments for author File: Comments.zip

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 
We have improved our paper by addressing all requests and comments. We are very grateful for the time you have taken to review our paper.
Please find attached the letter with the responses to the requests.
Kind regards
Ania Cravero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article has been revised and explained according to the comments.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 
 We are very grateful for the time you have taken to review our paper.

Kind regards
Ania Cravero