A Methodological Proposal for the Design of Agricultural Parks—The Case of Metropolitan City of Rome

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The authors have well taken into account the comments made at the first reviewing stage. Thanks to the revisions, in particular the change of title and the adjustment of the objectives, the manuscript has gained more clarity. This article makes an interesting contribution to the sustainable management of peri-urban agricultural land.

At this stage, I have only minor comments:
The introduction should begin with a few catchphrases, before setting out the purpose of the article.
l. 56-57 not clear, please reformulate, clarify what this reference brings to the debate
l. 499-501 are important, maybe include them in the abstract or intro

Please choose between agritourism, agro-tourism and agritourisme, be consistent

Finally, the conclusion could be slightly expanded, for example by specifying the avenues of research opened up by this article, which are only hinted at.

L 741 revise the reference

L 779-780 revise the reference

Author Response

We thank you for your time. We have implemented all the minor revisions you have suggested in the final document. Once again, thanks for your professional inputs. 

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Authors have adressed almost alll issues and replied to all points highlighted in the prevoius round of review. 

I think that paper is ready for pubblication. 

Author Response

Thanks for your professional inputs. We have implemented some minor changes in the introduction and expanded the conclusion. Once again, thank you. 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Based on the concept of the 15-minutes city, the authors determine the optimal perimeter for a metropolitan agricultural park around Rome, Italy. To that end, they conducted a spatial analysis crossing several data layers on agronomic and productive suitability of the land, accessibility, and population density. Then they collected additional data on the farms included in such perimeter to show the types of goods and services offered, the multifunctionality of these farms.

This methodology is innovative and conducts to an interesting map (map 5) which, I am sure, will be very useful for supporting innovation in local land use planning.

In order to be published, the manuscript needs however several major improvements.

First, the title of the paper is misleading. It announces that agricultural park may be a tool for social innovation and land management, but in fact, the paper does not describe any actual agricultural park, it brings scientific evidence about the optimal delineation of such a park around Rome. So, the title should be revised.

Second, the reader is expecting a section of literature review on agricultural parks. What is it? Are there different types of agricultural parks? Are they on public or/and private land? I quickly looked on google scholar with several Key words such as “agricultural park”, “agripark”, or “agriparc”, or “agrarian park” and found immediately several interesting references in Spain, France, Germany, or elsewhere: they would be useful to include in the paper. So please complete the state of the art on such a planning concept beyond the Italian context. Some cases such as Baix Llobregat in Barcelona are very famous, or Montpellier’s agriparcs. Your paper should be useful for a reader worldwide.

Without citing the word “agriculture park” many scholars have already qualified periurban agriculture for land use planning (see for instance the work of Esther Sanz Sanz et al. ).

Third, the tables 1 and 2 are very difficult to read and understand. For instance, on table 1, what does ANS mean? And WAT? And we do not understand what you want to show with this table. An option would be to help the reader by explaining how you would read it (give an example of a cell or a line/column).

Idem for table 2, we do not understand the totals of the columns: for instance in column ‘metropolitan city’ is more than 100%. Is the buffer zone 66% of the metropolitan city? Why buffer zone + agric areas suitable for agriculture within the buffer = 100%? I do not understand neither the last line.

On figure 6, please explain what alveare is.

Fourth, the 2 aims of the paper are not reached. The 1^st one is, but not the 2^nd : we do not understand how this area, calculated by GIS, could serve as a governance and integrated planning tool? Governance is supposed to be about how public and private actors interact to achieve a common goal. But here, your metropolitan agricultural is still virtual. So, this 2^nd aim of the paper should be moved to your conclusions, as a possible policy implication of your results, and removed from the initial aims of the paper, as your results do not deal with governance issues.

I do believe, that such revisions could lead a very valuable paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

I found this paper very interesting and relevant, especially for the purposes of this journal and for the  scientific debate on agricultural parks, urban-rural interface and peri-urban landscapes. However, I think this paper needs to be improved to be published, starting from these following points of attention. In general, I have the impression that methods and the entire process are not easily understood. In my opinion, it requires additional effort to clarify some concepts/parts.

Here are a few suggestions that I hope will be helpful in improving the paper. As you will see, in most cases, it is sufficient to reorganise the concepts and make them more understandable and readable.

Introduction

This section should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. The current state of the research field should be carefully reviewed and key publications cited. In general, In this paper, the content is not sufficiently contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background on these topics.

See for example:

·       ·        Aubry, C., & Kebir, L. (2013). Shortening food supply chains: A means for maintaining agriculture close to urban areas? The case of the French metropolitan area of Paris. Food Policy, 41, 85–93

Cattivelli, V. Institutional Methods for the Identification of Urban and Rural Areas—A Review for Italy. In Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions. Results of SSPCR 2019; Bisello, A., Vettorato, D., Ludlow, D., Baranzelli, C., Eds.; Springer Science and Business Media: Berlin, Germany, 2021; pp. 187–207

·        Dadashpoor, H.; Ahani, S. Explaining objective forces, driving forces, and causal mechanisms affecting the formation and expansion of the peri-urban areas: A critical realism approach. Land Use Policy 2021, 102, 105232

·        Davoudi, S.; Stead, D. Urban-rural relationships: An introduction and a brief history. Built Environ. 2002, 28, 269–277

·        Fanfani, D.; Matarán Ruiz, A. Bioregional Planning and Design: Volume I; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2020.

·        Fanfani, D. Agricultural Park in Europe as Tool for Agri-Urban Policies and Design: A Critical Overview. In Agrourbanism. Tools for Governance and Planning of Agrarian Landscape; Gottero, E., Ed.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2019; pp. 149–169.

·        Goncalves, J.; Castilho Gomes, M.; Ezequiel, S.; Moreira, F.; Loupa-Ramos, I. Differentiating peri-urban areas: A transdisciplinary approach towards a typology. Land Use Policy 2017, 63, 331–341

·        Mortoja, M.G.; Yigitcanlar, T.; Mayere, S. What is the most suitable methodological approach to demarcate peri-urban areas? A systematic review of the literature. Land Use Policy 2020, 95, 104601

Authors mentioned many concepts but without underlining the current state of the research field. In my opinion urban-rural fringe, conflicts and relationship between urban and rural areas, how to preserve agricultural areas and manage conflicts, agricultural park, peri-urbanization, proximity and 15-minute city, should be the main background concepts of this paper. These are the concepts around which the introduction (and, in part, discussion) should be organised.

Lines 84-102: Health and well-being? which is the nexus with agricultural park? In my opinion this part is not relevant to the focus of this paper.

Lines 109-120: this part refers to the case study. Introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context. I suggest creating a sub-section on the framing of the case study and move it to section 2 (methodology).

In general, the aim of this paper is not clear. Please, better explain and make explicit the purpose of this research, as well as clarify the structure of work.

Section 2: Agricultural parks and multifunctional agriculture. In my opinion this part could be summarised and moved to the introduction. In this part you mentioned some good examples, but mainly Italian practices. if the purpose is to provide an overview, there are many other interesting European examples that you can mention (See, for example, Fanfani, 2019).

Section 3.1: this section should be move in the introduction in order to clarify the aim of this paper.

 3.2 Method: this section is critical. It is not clear and easily understood.  It should describe the method used with sufficient details to allow others to replicate.

Here methods were vaguely described and explained. The points listed should be further explored and described in detail. In addition, what is described in section 3.2 is not clearly reflected in the sections 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6, as well as in the results sections.

Please, better explain and clarify methods, criteria and phases used to define the potential area and analysis of the flow of goods and services. Maybe could be useful add a flowchart that explains each step and related outputs.  

Section 3.3: it could be replaced by a table that summarizes the main spatial and numerical outputs, datasets and sources used for the definition of the knowledge framework.

 Results: Results should provide a precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation, as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn. 

·        Table 1 is not clear! Is second column wrong?

·        Figure 5: the perimeter is not recognisable. Please, highlight the line

·        Figure 6 is not decipherable! Please, improve the quality or replace it with a map at an adequate scale

·        Lines 425-434: it is not necessary to list all products.

·        Table 4: if possible, please add a column with data source (Producers and Year)

Discussion:

In my opinion the meaning of your findings, particularly in relation to international research and urban and peri-urban policy debate, is not clear. Weaknesses and strengths of methods used and results of the work, as well as possible fields of application of this study, have not been addressed. Please, expand this  section on strengths and weaknesses of the work, and implications of your work for urban policy and agendas, potential beneficiaries/users, governance of urban-rural interfaces, as well as future research. Often authors refer to the case study but the case study approach is useful where it explicitly demonstrates an innovative/replicable method (exportable to other contexts) and  when it shows comparable results.  In this paper the authors should better contextualise their hypotheses and results in the planning debate, in a broader context.

Conclusion: In my opinion this section could be merged with the discussion. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf