The Determinants of Smallholder Farmers on the Functionality of Plant Health Clinics in the Vhembe District, South Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article discusses the decisive factors of smallholder farmers in a region of South Africa on the function of plant health clinics. The idea of the article is detailed. The authors use questionnaires to collect microscopic first-hand data, and uses Logit model to analyze its factors. This is an interesting study, which has certain value and significance for research in related fields. In general, there are some minor revisions in this manuscript, so I suggest that the editor office consider allowing the authors to make revisions before publishing this article. Specific details include:

(1) The authors’ institutional addresses may need to be modified. I found that the author listed a total of four institutional addresses, but all the authors’ addresses are only 1 or 2. Where are the third and fourth organizations?

(2) The key words of the article need to be unified in both upper and lower case. Some words are capitalized, but some are lowercase.

(3) The tables and figures of the article are not beautiful enough, and there are some small problems. For example, although Figure 1 is large, the texts in it are too small for readers to read the legend and region name. The scale also needs to be enlarged and made more beautiful. In addition, the pointer seems to be truncated. Please check again. The font of Table 1 is inconsistent. The author does not add “0” before the decimal point for the values between 0 and 1 in Table 2, but usually needs to write “. 001” as “0.001” for the sake of beauty, and the rest are the same. Figure 3 also has the same problem that needs to be improved. The font of this figure is moderate, but the box is too large, which is not beautiful. In line 211 “coef=-059”, there should be a decimal point difference in the middle, and it should be changed to “coef=-.059” or “coef=-0.059”. These minor problems should be corrected and noted by the authors. At the same time, the authors are suggested to read the full text and further correct similar problems.

(4) The formula is not beautiful enough. For example, the author listed many formulas on page 4, but the format is not uniform and needs to be further changed. In addition, there is an extra bracket in the middle of the third formula on page 4. These small mistakes need to be carefully proofread and checked by the authors.

(5) References need further specification. The reviewer found that the authors listed the volumes and issues of the reference documents, but only the issues needed to be listed. In addition, there are other references that do not list volumes and issues, such as reference [7]. Reference [11] should use commas instead of colons at the end of the period. The rest are the same.

(6) The introduction is relatively brief, and it is suggested to further improve it. The author can discuss the research results of predecessors and the highlights and innovations of this study, and better highlight the academic contribution of this paper by comparing the differences between this paper and previous research results. The introduction is a very important part of an article, which requires the author to sort out the shortcomings of the existing literature and the contributions and new ideas of this manuscript carefully and carefully. In addition, the reviewer suggested that the author should list some relevant reference of Agriculture-Basel when submitting this journal, because if the article is suitable for publication in a certain journal, then the publication will usually have relevant research results. At the same time, the reviewer suggested that the author specify the methods of previous studies and the contributions of this study in the introduction. It is very necessary to learn from these research results, because it can help us better compare the shortcomings of previous studies and the highlights of this research. For example:

[1] Yang, R.Y.; Yang, Z.S. Can the Sorghum Planting Industry in Less-Favoured Areas Promote the Income Increase of Farmers? An Empirical Study of Survey Data from 901 Samples in Luquan County. Agriculture, 2022, 12, 2107. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12122107.

[2] Serote, B.; Mokgehle, S.; Senyolo, G.; du Plooy, C.; Hlophe-Ginindza, S.; Mpandeli, S.; Nhamo, L.; Araya, H. Exploring the Barriers to the Adoption of Climate-Smart Irrigation Technologies for Sustainable Crop Productivity by Smallholder farmers: Evidence from South Africa. Agriculture 2023, 13, 246. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13020246

[3] Zhu, M.; Shen, C.; Tian, Y.; Wu, J.; Mu, Y. Factors Affecting Smallholder Farmers’ Marketing Channel Choice in China with Multivariate Logit Model. Agriculture 2022, 12, 1441. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12091441

(7) This paper adopts the way of questionnaire survey, and the authors further expound the moral issues of the questionnaire survey and list the statements. However, the reviewer suggests that the author supplement all the survey contents of the questionnaire and put them in the “Appendix”, such as what are the survey questions, what are the survey options, and the description of filling in, which will help to improve the persuasiveness of the article.

(8) There are some minor language mistakes in this article, which need to be read carefully and corrected in time. If necessary, please ask MDPI’s paper polishing agency to help solve the problems.

(9) After constructing the econometric model, the author needs to further test the model, including whether there is multicollinearity, whether there is heteroscedasticity, etc., and specifically explain the test indicators and their significance in the paper.

(10) In the last section, the author only lists the conclusions of the research, and it is necessary to discuss the significance and value of the research results. Therefore, the reviewer suggested that the authors supplement the “Discussion” section to make a more in-depth analysis and sublimation of the results.

(11) It is commendable that the work done in this article is large and there are many steps. Therefore, the reviewer suggested that the authors add a frame diagram to more clearly explain the specific steps, methods and ideas of the paper.

Author Response

Good day.

Please see the attachments: 

Revised manuscript

Point-by-point response.

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper investigated the determinants of smallholder farmers'  awareness and accessibility of plant health clinics; and identified the Challenges Encountered by Smallholder Farmers in Vhembe District Municipality of Limpopo Province, South Africa. This study fits in the main theme of the journal, but still requires some revisions.

1. The introduction part abruptly shows that the research content has value, and this part should pay attention to the theoretical and practical significance of the research;
2. What is the sampling strategy used in this study? How are the samples selected and identified as representative? How do you deal with missing data?
3. Please explain the criteria for selecting the potential influencing factors in Table 1.
4. A descriptive statistic is needed in the results. 

Author Response

Good day.

Please see the attachments:

Revised version

Point-by-point response

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf