Farmers’ Perception of Good Agricultural Practices in Rice Production in Myanmar: A Case Study of Myaungmya District, Ayeyarwady Region
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the introduction authors mentioned as "the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MOAI) introduced Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) in rice production in 2008 as a nationwide program to enhance the yield of rice in Myanmar.", "GAPs in rice production are understood as a basket containing many technologies which are suited for a particular environment and aim at helping farmers to boost the yield of rice. ". However, I doubt that GAPs aims enhancing yield. Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) is the voluntary audit that verify that fruits and vegetables are produced, packed, handled, and stored as safely as possible to minimize risks of microbial food safety hazards.
In the last part of [2.1. Framework and Variables], authors explained why they considered those factors in this study (using references). However, it would be better that refer previous studies first and explain that those references are sources of factors in Figure 1 and Table 1.
In overall (include Table 2), authors seem to be too much focused on the relationship btw quality seeds and GAP. However GAP is more 'safety issue'.
How this classification come from "GAP1 (Sparse sowing on seedbed), GAP4 (Systematic care of nursery), GAP7 (Seedlings per hill), GAP10 (Pests & disease management), and GAP12 (Submerging) were perceived to be compatible with their current farming practices. In contrast, farmers’ perception on compatibility was low in 6 component technologies of GAPs in rice production: GAP3 (Covering), GAP5 (Uprooting & transplanting), GAP6 (Planting depth), GAP8 (Plant population), GAP9 (Alternate wetting & drying), and GAP 14 (Combine harvester)" ? I do not understand why author conducted clustering and the implications of empirical resuts are very poor.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for giving fruitful comments to the manuscript.
I have attached my response to your comments.
With Regards,
SOE
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
You need to explain clearly why you associate Yield and GAP?
You have to discuss other advantage of GAP in terms of quality and prices
You have to explicite more clearly the 14 components. Not clear.
Gap it's a package. So why to consider separetely and with binar modellisation. Please, mention limitation in your methodology.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for giving fruitful comments to the manuscript.
I have attached my response to your comments.
With Regards,
SOE
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Still, it is not sufficiently convincing why authors analyzed the GAP and Yield.
2. Although some of the characteristics of GAP, as the author says, are related to the production increase, it is difficult to see this as the main reason for farmers adopt GAP.
3. I asked about the necessity of clustering in this analysis, but there was still not enough explanation for that.
4. The GAP classification seems to be very important in this paper, but there is still the question of whether farmers really know and judge these details in GAP acceptance. (It also seems to be the reason why siginificant factors in the estimated result are small.)
5. The policy implications of the analysis results are also poor.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for giving fruitful comments.
I have prepared my response to your comments.
Please kindly check the attached file.
With Regards,
Paing Oo
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for your upgrade and responses
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for the approval of my response at the first round of comments.
With Regards,
Paing Oo
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
