Evaluating Agricultural Extension Agent’s Sustainable Cotton Land Production Competencies: Subject Matter Discrepancies Restricting Farmers’ Information Adoption

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The detailed comments are as follows:

The wording of the title needs to be improved (the key issue, ie cotton, is missing, the spatial scope is not taken into account). The title contains a reference to 'Rural Land Sustainability' (hereinafter 'agricultural land sustainability'????), while in the work itself this issue is dealt with briefly. The title is generally inconsistent with the rest of the article.

The abstract does not provide information on the sources of the data used.

Keywords do not reflect the essence of the work, they are very fragmented.

The introduction does not fulfill its role and requires a thorough revision. The analytical layer regarding literature sources needs to be strengthened, the threads discussed in the introduction require a certain logical arrangement. With reference to the literature, the research gap that was filled was not indicated and the necessity of conducting the research was insufficiently justified.

The purpose is unclear (especially its first part; what is the upcoming program development about?) The purpose requires further clarification.

From the point of view of an international reader, there is no short description of the research area and its characteristics (also in terms of cotton production). In the methodology, there is no spatial scope (states but in which country?), no time scope, no indication of how many questionnaires were finally collected. The manuscript stated that the questionnaires were for five states (line 87/88) and that the conclusions indicated one state (line 453). These are key considerations for the research and evaluation of the article. The question is why this state was chosen as the spatial extent (see the above note on the characteristics of the research area).

There is no indication of the limitations of the conducted research (data collection, analysis), apart from the information in the conclusions that only one state was analyzed.

Author Response

Thank you for the detailed feedback and taking the time to provide the authorship team a high-quality review. How and where we made your revisions and improvements are detailed in the attachment. 

Thank you again for your quality of work. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presented is innovative, current, well written, and easy to read. The authors write about a theme that, although they are based in the United States, is also common to other countries. However, I leave some suggestions:

Line 43: "increase producer incomes" I believe is due to decreased inputs not increased production, if so, can the goal of increasing production by 40% be met?

Line 73: [is being evaluated] why do you have []?

Line 139: The name of the institution is missing

Line 401: The name of the locations is missing

Line 416: What was the response rate?

Line 417: The recommendation should be further substantiated

Author Response

Thank you taking the time to provide the authorship team a high-quality review. How and where we made your revisions and improvements are detailed in the attachment. Your feedback was extremely helpful. 

Thank you again for your quality of work. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This was an interesting and well constructed study. There are a few items which I believe should be addressed to improve overall utility of the manuscript. 

1. Please indicate the overall response rate - the sample size was noted, but not the response % (even though the low response rate is noted in the conclusion)

2. The factor analysis (scree plot, EFA table, etc.) may not be necessary to the intent of the manuscript. As written the the individual competency items are presented thematically, therefore factor analysis would not be necessary to perform item level RDM. Furthermore, there is no index level analysis within themes (i.e. not comparing mean scores of water management and sustainable cotton production). The EFA data become more problematic for the soil and nutrient management and IPM results. Specifically, the data indicate cross loading items between factors, not necessarily two distinct factors as stated in the narrative. A recommendation would be to remove the EFA data and instead focus on the more novel RDM results.

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time and effort to help us improve our manuscript. Your comments and suggestions were very helpful.

We detailed our feedback including where and how in the manuscript in the attachment "Responses to Reviewer#3". 

Thank you again for your time and high-quality review. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Broad comments

Due to its overall poor language and technical quality, this article needs considerable and severe restoration and improvement. There are several phrases that need to be changed since they don't fit the study report. the research procedures and findings are not sufficiently well-accurate to be published even after a significant and fundamental alteration.

Title

Change the title, please. It is lengthy and confusing. Keep the time out of the title.

Abstract

·         The findings and contributions of the paper are not well expressed in the abstract. In addition, specifics on the study methodology and key findings or outputs are required. Consequently, the abstract must be significantly improved, particularly the actual results.

·         This abstract is lengthy. The maximum word count for the abstract is 200. Refer to the "Author guidelines" if necessary.

Keywords

• Please update and clarify the key phrases. Please use the words that have been underlined in the article as your search terms. 

• Use different words entirely for the title and keyword.
• Plaese put only 6 keywork in the manuscript.

Introduction and literature

·         There are a few repetitions in the opening portion. Make adjustments as necessary.

·         The literature review is primarily responsible for how one study differs from others in the same field of inquiry.

·         A thorough examination of the literature is essential. What makes this study unique from others in the field?

·         The literature and introduction are both rather condensed. So what makes this research important?

·         By using the research report style, the authors should enhance the introductory and literature review sections.

·         If more study is done on the approaches and tools used to examine integrated systems, the effort will be considerably more effective. 

Methodology

• Where does the collection of data fit in?
• Which types of data have you used?
• Please include all of the information listed above in the text's main body.
• I believe that additional specifics and references should be used to characterise the study area.

Result

·         The results section is brief and ineffective. Please revise and update it.

Discussion

·         The discussion section is useless and short. Please revise it and enhance it.

Conclusion

The conclusion might be improved and modified to emphasise the study's results more than any issues or implications. What makes research novel? What "limitations of research" are there? Please place the section titled "Recommendations and Future Work" in conclusion.

Specific comments

·         The quality of all figures should be re-evaluated. Each one should include comprehensive and self-explanatory subtitles. 

·         There are also a few grammatical/punctuation errors throughout the text that need to be corrected.

·         To meet publishing requirements, such as making sure the research is done in a sound way, the current form needs to be changed a lot.

·         You should use this style of formatting for references and verify the references and follow the author structure for the entire work.

·         In order to meet with publishing guidelines, such as putting the study with sound methods, the current form requires considerable adjustments.

·         You need to better distribute the knowledge portions between the materials and methods, results, and discussion.

·         Before the paper is accepted, all these critical issues must be explained reasonably in the Materials and Methods section. 

Author Response

Thank you for providing your time in providing the authorship team is an extensive high-quality review. 

Your feedback made us think holistically and challenged us to reflect deeper on the merits for both researchers and practitioners our manuscript informed readers. 

We detailed how and where we addressed your feedback and suggestions in the Responses to Reviewer#4 attachment. 

Thank you again for taking the time to help us improve our scholarship. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has improved significantly compared to its first version.

My doubts are raised by the combination of the title and the subtitle in part 5 of the manuscript. Perhaps it is better to add in the text (e.g. at the beginning of the paragraph) that it is about recommendations, and then about future research.

Author Response

We address this reviewer's feedback by deleting the Recommendations and Future Research identification. 

Reviewer 4 Report

I don't have any additional comments.

Thanks

Author Response

Thank you to this reviewer. We did not have anything to address for this reviewer.