How Communication Affects the Adoption of Digital Technologies in Soybean Production: A Survey in Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written and clear.

I have only some minor observations: 

• Please uniform the use of lower and upper case letters used in the acronyms and in general all along the paper. Only personal names should use upper letters.
•  A reference to the data given in the paragraph at line 496 should be added.
• On line 503 authors claimed that the have delivered thounsands of survey but "only" 461 responses where obtained. How do you justify this result ?

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

The article presents very interesting and valuable research results. Due to its uniqueness it is quite valuable. However, it requires corrections.

 

Introduction and SoA have been prepared without major objections.

Methodology chapter requires correction, additions and clarifications:

- The selection and choice of social media in the study needs clarification.

- The selection and definitions of Precision Agriculture technologies need clarification.

- Which technologies in the study are Digital Technologies?

The Results and Discussions chapter needs expansion, especially in the discussion section:

- Results. Presenting the results in graphical form would be more readable.

- Discussion: Reference to the results of other studies from other countries of the region is missing. The adaptation of PA technology in the USA, Australia and some European countries is well reported in the literature.

Conclusions correct. Some literature items need to be supplemented.

The manuscript was prepared carefully. Minor correction is required for the descriptions of the figures.

 

Specific comments and suggestions

Figure 1 and 2:  Move the figure description under the figure.

 

Line 265 – 266: Item [33] is not scientifically verifiable. It is not available as a open-access or paid service. It is only available to Ambra members, member companies. If you wish to cite you must provide specific data from this publication otherwise the citation is not valid.

Secondly, if the survey was conducted March 31st to May 31st, 2021, and the 8 Pesquisa ABMRA report was published later i.e. after March 31st, how was it the basis for selection?

 

Line 268:  „acres” – acre is not a standard in SI, or ISO, perhaps better replaced by 'cropped area.

 

336-339: Is this part of the discussion or a description of your own performance? It is not clear.

 

Remarks on Table 1.:

- "Yield monitors w/ GPS " . Unintelligible. Maybe "Yield monitors" is enough.

- What does GPS mean in the context of the survey? What PA technology is being referred to here?

- 'Automatic rate control telematics' . Not clear.  Variable rate technology and telematics are two different Precision Agriculture technologies. Probably referring to variable rate technology (VRA or VRT)

- " Sprayer control systems " - needs to be clarified whether this refers to section control technologies or variable rate application (VRA) technologies

- The PA technologies listed in Table 1, decisions are not precise. If one were to rely at least on the document already cited (Purdu survey) [32] the names of the technologies should be corrected, clarified.

- Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (NPK) and liming decisions" It is not clear which decisions are in question. From the text in line 411 it appears that it is probably about variable rate fertilisation, but this is not clear.

- The descriptions in the "decisions" section are not precise, the boundaries are fluid. E.g. "Overall hybrid/variety selection" and "Variable hybrid or variety placement" are actually the same thing.

Perhaps the production specifics in Brazil justify the use of such wording, but globally they are not understood. They can remain as long as they will be described in the text.

 

Line 416: and throughout the whole article: "GPS-based soil sampling" If you mean satellite-based positioning and navigation technology use GNSS- based soil sampling. If you mean only the US positioning system, GPS Navstar without using Beidu, Galileo or Glonass, you should still use GPS. I think, however, that the Brazilian soil samplers do not operate solely on GPS, but are multisystem, i.e. GNSS. I think, in fact I am pretty sure, that the receivers in Brazil do not work exclusively on GPS, but are multisystem, i.e. GNSS.

 

Remarks on Table 2.

- According to data, Brazil registers 18 million downloads of the TikToka app, giving it 6th place in the world. Why hasn't this media been studied?

- "Websites and blogs" - use the singular count as for the other social media.

 

Line 493: „Statista (2021).” Incorrect citation. Missing in the reference.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all comments and suggestions. All necessary modifications have been made.