Exploring the Influence Mechanism of Farmers’ Organic Fertilizer Application Behaviors Based on the Normative Activation Theory

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study employs the normative activation theory to construct an analytical framework regarding the influence mechanism of farmers' organic fertilizer application behaviors. The paper is well structured, with an explicit theoretical platform. The discussion section frames the results in the context of the proposed RQs, and the conclusions essentially summarize the study's results.

Several clarifications are needed:

• Lines 46-47: References are needed for the statement: "Studies have shown that crops absorb just 30 to 50 percent of chemical fertilizers".
•  Line 251: “with an effective rate of 90.93%”. Pls. explain what this effective rate is.
• “Each district (city) selected two to three townships (towns), each township (town) selected two to three administrative villages, and each administrative village randomly selected 10 to 20 farmers to conduct a questionnaire survey”. Pls explain how the selection was made in each case. Also, correct the grammar of the sentence (e.g., “was” before “selected”.).
• Lines 239-241: “To ensure the representativeness and effectiveness of the questionnaire, the questions used were revised and optimized through a pre-survey, and the investigators were trained”. This is not enough to ensure representativeness. Pls correct.
• Table 1: Pls remove “Environmental behaviors such as …” from the lines corresponding to awareness because the items do not express awareness in their current form.
• Miscellaneous: a) I recommend using the terms "paper"/"study" instead of "article"; "first"/"firstly", "second"/" secondly", "third"/"thirdly" are overused in the paper. At least, try to replace them in the last paragraph of the Conclusion section; b) Lines 62-63: "First, although existing research analyzes the farmers' OFABs from different perspectives, they rarely analyze from the perspective of social psychology theory." Pls include the direct object after "analyze"; c) Lines 245-246, avoid repetition - "mainly"; d) "The research data in this article come from the research team"- awkward writing for a scientific paper, please rephrase.

 

 

 

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, we have revised them as requested, please see the attachment "Reviewer #1_Detailed responses" for details.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper provides an important contribute on investigating the farmers' behaviour on organic fertilizers. Using a Normative Activation Theory approach, the author illustrate the findings arisen from a sample of about 400 farmers located in the Hubei Province in China. Methodology is suitable to the aims of the paper and it is well applied. Results are clearly illustrated and discussion is coherent with the findings.
I only suggest to improve the Introduction, providing more information about the use of organi fertilizers in agriculture. It is important for the readers to know the object of the study

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, we have revised them as requested, please see the attachment "Reviewer #2_Detailed responses" for details.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The study explores the influence mechanism of farmers’ organic fertilizer Application behaviors based on the normative activation theory. This is an important topic and contributes to the existing literature in the area of sustainable agricultural production. The methodology employed is appropriate however, there is a need for clearer presentation of how the data for the study was obtained, for example, how many enumerators were employed, how the stratified random sampling was undertaken etc. The use of words should be more succinct and the mode of expression employed in the paper should be improved.  

Line 18. “analysis” should be changed to “analytical”

Line 42. The statement “The promotion of organic fertilizer is a crucial solution to” should be reframed particularly the word combination “crucial solution”.

Line 52. “Thus, we aim to guide the farmers to use organic 52 fertilizers” In what way do you intend to guide the farmers?

Line 58: “knowledge training” or “knowledge transfer”

Line 73: “Therefore, this paper uses the questionnaire survey data of many farmers in Wuhan City”. The use of the phrase “many farmers” should be revised. It is essential that the authors are specific on the number of farmers. In fact, there should be a separate section explaining the data.

 

Generally, there is need for the entire paper to be cross-checked to improve the grammatical construction of the paper.

 

What does “RQ1” mean? I understand it might mean research question but this has to be well spelt out.

Line 206. As an “exotic product”, what does this mean? I think the phrase should be changed.

Line 233:” The research data in this article come from the research team,” this sentence should be reframed. Data cannot come from the research team. They only conducted the survey.

Line 239: “effectiveness of the questionnaire” questionnaire should be changed to “survey”

Line 242 “Each district (city) selected two to three townships (towns)” Is it the districts that selects the townships? This is not well expressed. The whole of section 3.1 should be revised in terms of the grammatical expression. There is also the need to be more exact on the way the sampling was actually undertaken.

Line 248: “All questionnaires were filled out by 248 members of the research” what’s the meaning of this?

 

Line 251: “an effective rate of 90.93%.” This should be “response” rate and not “effective” rate

In Table 1, there should be a separate column for the measurement scales employed. It looks clumsy in its current form.

 

In the conclusion, there is a need to avoid repetition in the use of words. For example, “moving from high-polluting traditional production methods to low-polluting ecological production methods,” was repeated several times.

                                                                                         

Line 536 “In the future, we should further strengthen the construction of” Who is “we” referring to here. The authors should be more specific.

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions, we have revised them as requested, please see the attachment "Reviewer #3_Detailed responses" for details.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been greatly improved and I am okay for it to be accepted in the present form