Exploring the Effects of Farmland Transfer on Farm Household Well-Being: Evidence from Ore–Agriculture Compound Areas in Northwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The topic of the paper is relevant and interesting. The authors showed a respected fluency in an analysis of the identified problem of effects of farmland transfer on farm households’ well-being. The next comments can only improve the research quality:
1. I would recommend to define the concept of a farmland transfer in the Introduction. In the text it is treated as an obvious idea, but its clear statement would improve the perception of the issue from the very beginning. The authors refer to modes of farmland transfer only – when they review the literature (lines106-118) and while discussing the results (lines 527-561), but it would be better to introduce them at the beginning while defining the farmland transfer or even omit them (as the paper is not focused on the different modes – it is stated as a space for research in the future).
2. When adopting the PSM method some covariates are used; however, some of them, e.g. those related to income (income change, farm income, non-farm income), have already been incorporated in the idea of well-being (BMN: per capita net income, income satisfaction, FCA: non-farming working time, income source diversity) – what are the arguments to use them as covariates?
3. Moreover, only two of the covariates (age and education level) are used for the detailed analyses of effects of land transfer on well-being. Please, justify the choice. It would also be interesting to research the role of some climate-resources factors, such as soil erosion or drought degree, or social situation specified by children in education.
4. The text needs also some proof-reading – a style of references should be adopted to the requirements of the Journal and some minor language mistakes (typos, grammatical) corrected (i.e. in Fig. 2: ‘reviralization’, ‘sencitive’, in title of Tab. 1 ‘wights’, or sentence in lines 326-327 ‘Furtherly, computing…’).
Generally, the paper is well-written and deserve to be published.
Good luck!
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear Authors,
I have received your paper "Exploring the Effects of Farmland Transfer on Farm Household Well-Being: Evidence from Ore-Agriculture Compound Areas in Northwest China" from the Land Journal and below you can find some recommendations.
- in the Abstract, at the lines 11 - 12 you say: "Furtherly, the PSM method was used to estimate the net effect of land transfer on farm household well-being and its heterogeneity." I recommend you to describe the acronym "PSM" at its first appearance, so that the readers understand what are you talking about.
- in the Introduction, you describe the research gap and the research goal. However, this chapter should be improved by including an additional paragraph containing the description of the research questions. The readers are very interested in knowing them from the Introduction section of the article.
- after the Introduction, I recommend you include a new "Literature Review" chapter. Here you should describe the general background of your research proposal by including relevant resources about well-being, food safety, etc.: https://shorturl.at/0sfUB, https://shorturl.at/Dn5HK, https://shorturl.at/mvpad. At the end of this chapter, you should also define and describe the research hypotheses. The hypotheses should be based on the previous results from the literature and they should converge towards the goal of the article.
- in the section "3.2. Sampling and Data Collection", at the lines 230 - 231 you say: "In the last step, about 36 farm households of every village were selected as the respondents." I recommend you to remove the word "about" before "36 farm households", because 36 is a fix number.
- in "Table 1. The indicator system and their wights of farm household well-being", the last column contains the values of "Weights". At this moment, it is very unclear where these values come from. I recommend you include additional details about these values, so that the readers understand them.
- in the section "3.4.2. Variable Selection", you say at the lines 352 - 353: "We selected 13 covariates not only affecting farm households transferring farmland but also shaping well-being outcomes." It is not clear what methodology was used to select the 13 covariates. Please provide additional information about this aspect.
- I would recommend you include an appendix at the end of the article and within the appendix please specify a public repository where the raw data can be accessed. For example, you can provide a link to a FigShare repository, or something like this.
Best Regards!
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
In general, the paper was well-structured and well-written. However, some clarifications or justifications are needed for the research methdology:
1) How were the 17 indicators selected? By whom? Based on what sorts of selection criteria? (line 251)
2) How was the entropy method operated to determine the factor/indicator weighting?
3) Why were the three administrative units selected? What kinds of sampling were used in the research?
4) What are the limitations of the research? How do these limitations affect the interpretations of the findings of the research?
One minor point:
There are a few typos in the paper, e.g. "wights" (line 254). The authors should have the paper proofread carefully before submission.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear authors, thanks for this manuscript that analyzes the possible effects on the transfer of agricultural land or portions to families in the Chinese context.
In order to carry out a complete and satisfactory study from a methodological and analytical point of view, I recommend following some recommendations.
1) Please, describe in brief the method PSM in the abstract or specify the acronym.
2) Please, insert a table for the text included from lines 39 to 66 to make the short review easier to read.
3) Can there be a link between livelihood and well-being in the agricultural context? Please, insert a short analysis in introduction
4) What is the general research questions?
5) Whai is the innovation related to the methdology and the topic included in this manuscript?
6) Methodologically, through which bibliographic source was the sample of 485 questionnaires used justified? Can it be considered statistically valid?
7) To facilitate reading, it is necessary to insert a table of acronyms.
8) Lines 235-237: How was the sample size selected? Please justify the technique used.
9) Please, In Table 1, insert a column with the bibliographic reference that identified/constructed the indicators.
10) Please improve the structure of table 2.
11) Please, correct typo in line 362 (shown in Table2).
12) What are the possible practical and managerial implications of this study?
13) What are the limitations of a possible practical application and what were the difficulties in constructing this study?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear Authors,
I recommend you address the following issues regarding your manuscript:
- at the end of the Literature Review chapter, please define and describe the research hypotheses. At this moment, they are not clearly expressed. Also, please see again the recommendations of the new resources from the previous review report.
- the research hypotheses should be tested and the results should be included in the Discussion section of the article;
- in the Conclusions section I recommend you include some comments about the research hypotheses and their managerial implications.
- a discussion about the generalizability of the particular results you obtained in your article would be welcome.
Kind Regards!
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear Author, thank you for submitting the revised version of the manuscript according to the recommendations received from the reviewers. Currently, the manuscript has been improved in the introduction, the acronym has been specified in the abstract, the literature has been significantly enriched, the novelty of the study has been specified, and other sections have been improved.
Author Response
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