Agent-Based Modelling to Improve Beef Production from Dairy Cattle: Young Beef Production

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper employes an agent-based model (ABM) for dairy-origin beef cattle production systems to understand price levers that potentially affect the level of acceptance of young beef processing on sheep and beef cattle production systems in New Zeland. The paper is of potential interest for Agriculture’s readers, although I found many major issues which prevent me to accept the paper in the current form:

I) Authors have to provide more emphasis on the novelty of their work compared to existing ones. It is not clear enough the genuine contribution of the current work compared to extant studies in the literature. I also suggest to expand the introduction with a literature review with a focus on ethical issue in producers’ and consumers’ decisions.

II) Authors may offer to the reader additional information about their decision to explore New Zeland case study instead of focusing on same issue in others countries.

III) The results and discussion is largely underdeveloped. Authors, authors have to provide more discussion comparing and contrasting their results from existing studies pointing out the novelty of their work. This section have to be deeply revised.

IV) A large part of the conclusions is not appropriate, as it is only a concise repetition of the comments. In the conclusions, you should simultaneously consider all you have discovered, and exploit it to add something new (or new interpretations), and policy indications.

V) The authors do not discuss possible limitations of their study or the insights for future directions of research. Maybe they could discuss external validity of the results in terms of possible insights in other countries and/or additional variables that they would have liked to have to better answer to their research question.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Introduction:

Slaughtering of bobby calves is not just an issue in New Zealand but in many countries. Therefore, mention other countries also for the broader application of this study.

Materials and methods:

Line 80: Mention the existing beef finishing system

Line 150: Add the reference

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This issue is interesting for me, but this paper is too simple to let me understand the Agent-Based Modelling to Improve Beef Production from Dairy Cattle. There are some suggestions:

1.There are questions of the abstract of this paper, it is hard to read for readers, for its topics did not illustrate clearly the motivation, method, results, and suggestion of this paper, the authors should present the more important ones in the abstract.

2.I think that the paper needs to be better organized. First of all, the Introduction is too less to contain enough information that I think would be more used to support the motivation and purpose of this paper. The points are to provide more background information on the issue of bobby calves in the New Zealand dairy industry and the potential benefits of utilizing these calves for beef production; to clearly and fully state the purpose of your study and the research questions you are attempting to answer.

3. No section for literature reviews, so literature reviews are lessly displayed and lack in-depth analysis. A literature review is written to summarize and review relevant research, not only to include breakthroughs and results in the field, but also to provide their own unique insights, as well as to be able to interest the reader and provide a pavement for the research to unfold. The points are to provide an overview of the agent-based modelling approach you used in your study, including a description of the model structure and the assumptions made.

4.I suggested the research design and analytic methods should be clearer with the conceptual/theoretical development in this paper. Research design and analytic methods refers to which theory you want to use to observe or study your research questions in your research. Or it can be understood as: which theory do you want to use to string up the concepts in your research. The theoretical framework is the relationship between concepts that you have assumed in your research. These hypothetical conceptual relationships are called models after you test them. Without the theoretical framework, there would be no relationship between key concepts, but just scattered concepts.

5.In the section of Materials and Methods, the authors should clearly and completely describe the research methods used in your study, the data sources and input parameters used in the model, including the feed supply and price data..

6. No section for Results, so the analysis of the empirical results is not deep enough and needs to be improved, the points are to conduct a comparative analysis with related research results, whether the findings of this paper are the same as the existing studies and what are the different conclusions; to clearly and completely present your findings, using tables and graphs to illustrate the data where appropriate; to clearly and completely analyze your findings, including the level of acceptance of young beef processing in sheep and beef cattle production systems in NZ under different price scenarios. For the section of discuss, the points are to analyze the results and discuss the implications for the New Zealand beef industry, including the potential benefits and challenges of implementing a young beef production system.

7.In the conclusion, it is too less to understand its real meanings. the authors should put forward suggestions, research ideas, improvement opinions, and some problems to be solved. And conclusion writing should be precise, complete, clear and concise. The points are to discuss Identify areas for further research, such as investigating the impact of meat quality and consumer preferences on young beef production, and exploring potential incentives for dairy farmers to participate in a young beef production system.

8. The references are not new enough and the quality needs to be improved.

9. The overall suggestions of paper writing are to use a formal and objective writing style throughout the paper, avoiding emotional or subjective language; to cite all sources properly and follow the appropriate formatting guidelines for your field; to proofread your paper carefully to ensure it is free of errors and meets the highest standards of academic writing; to ensure that your paper is well-structured, with clear section headings and a logical flow of ideas.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors properly addressed my comments, the current manuscript version fits for pubblication.