Review Reports - The Spatio-Temporal Patterns and Influencing Factors of Different New Agricultural Business Entities in China—Based on POI Data from 2012 to 2021

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 62- What are the economic goals of the state. What was her interest in the development of corporate agriculture?

There is no theoretical basis in the article - although it is mentioned in the introduction, it does not appear as a chapter by itself.

Is it related to food security for the country? Plans on food security? If so give it the appropriate reference

Line 63 - The tensions between the agricultural model of small farms and the large corporations must be explained. The reality is that large corporations take over and respect small family farms by exerting great economic pressures. The theoretical significance of this phenomenon should be considered

Line 562 It is not clear what you mean - if you can understand the predatory economic meaning of corporations

characteristics are regional aggre- 524 It is necessary to explain what this means in everyday life in the rural area

The table in line 546 is very accurate and helps to understand the distinct differences between the various organizations of farmers in China

Line 613 should explain in a deeper way the natural conditions and the effect of agriculture on the natural conditions

discasion and conclusion need English editing

Author Response

We sincerely thank the editors and all reviewers for their valuable feedback, which we use to improve the quality of the manuscript. The reviewer suggestions are laid out below in italicized front and specific concerns have been numbered. Our responses are given in normal font and changes to the manuscript are given in blue text.

Reviewer 1：

We feel great thinks for your professional review work on our articles. As you are concerned, there are several problems that need to be addressed. According to your nice suggestions, we have made extensive corrections to our previous manuscript, the detailed corrections are listed below.

Line 62- What are the economic goals of the state. What was her interest in the development of corporate agriculture?

Response:

In response to your question about the relationship between the country's economic goals and the development of agribusiness, and after careful consideration, we have made a correction to the manuscript, specifically in line 68-76, which is highlighted in blue. The specific corrections are as follows:

In terms of national development, the main goal of China's economic and social development is to move from comprehensive poverty eradication to rural revitalization, to improve the comprehensive national power, and to gradually modernize agriculture and rural areas. This series of development requires the participation of NABEs, which has led to the employment of farmers and prevented the phenomenon of returning to poverty after the comprehensive poverty eradication campaign. At the same time, the capital of some agricultural enterprises has gone to the countryside, injecting new vitality into rural economic development and contributing to the further realization of rural revitalization.

There is no theoretical basis in the article - although it is mentioned in the introduction, it does not appear as a chapter by itself.

Response:

Your valuable comments are sincerely appreciated. Based on your suggestions, we have revised the manuscript. In order to improve the theoretical part of the article, we have added the theoretical analysis and research hypotheses (lines 161-230) after the introduction and highlighted them in blue font. Thank you again for your valuable comments.

Is it related to food security for the country? Plans on food security? If so give it the appropriate reference

Response:

Sincerely thank you for your valuable comments. Following our reflection on food security, we have made further changes to line 76-80 of the manuscript and highlighted them in blue. The changes are as follows:

As far as national food security is concerned, the capacity of small farmers to produce food is weak, and their tendency towards non-food production has increased. The NABEs have the advantage of scale, which can attenuate the threat to national food security posed by the trend of non-food production by small farmers, thus guaranteeing the proportion of food planted at the macro level.

Line 63 - The tensions between the agricultural model of small farms and the large corporations must be explained. The reality is that large corporations take over and respect small family farms by exerting great economic pressures. The theoretical significance of this phenomenon should be considered.

Response:

Thank you for your valuable comments on the manuscript. We have carefully considered the theoretical significance of the phenomenon of tensions between agricultural enterprises and smallholders and have enriched this in 6.4 limitation (line 814-818) of the manuscript.

Line 562 It is not clear what you mean - if you can understand the predatory economic meaning of corporations

Response:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The section of 5.2 is organized by region. In line 562 we discuss some specific problems faced by the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. We are not quite sure exactly what you mean by the question you posed. Your question about predatory economics by firms is discussed further in 6.4 (line 814-822).

characteristics are regional aggre- 524 It is necessary to explain what this means in everyday life in the rural area

Response:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We are not quite sure exactly what you mean by the question you posed. What we are discussing in line 524 is that because cooperatives are larger, more mechanized, and more closely connected to farmers, they develop faster in the economically powerful and densely populated eastern regions and slower in the poor mountainous regions of the west, showing a pattern of east-west differences.

The table in line 546 is very accurate and helps to understand the distinct differences between the various organizations of farmers in China

Response:

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your valuable comments.

Line 613 should explain in a deeper way the natural conditions and the effect of agriculture on the natural conditions

Response:

Sincerely thank you for your valuable comments. Regarding your question about the impact of the development of NABEs on the natural environment, we have amended line 613 after careful consideration (Revised lines 731-737).

discasion and conclusion need English editing

Response:

Thanks to your suggestions, we have revised the language of the manuscript and uploaded the attachment to the system. In addition to this, we invited peer experts to revise the language again. We hope the revised manuscript could be acceptable for you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is very interesting and path breaking in how to promote different forms of farmers collectives in China keeping the efficiency and market linkages as objectives.

The papers’ introduction, data, methodology and presentation style and discussion of results and conclusion are excellent.

The paper shows that the "cooperative 90 + farmers" mode has the most obvious income-generating benefits, followed by the "leading enterprises + farmers" mode, and the "government-led + farmers" mode.

To analyse the differences in evolution of NABEs, the paper classified NABEs in to three types of NABEs—family farms, farmers' professional cooperatives, and agricultural enterprises and analysed in depth, with very interesting findings.

The paper suggested that There is an opportunity for family farms and cooperatives to focus on pre-production and production, with family farms producing high-quality agricultural products, and cooperatives driving family farms to improve the mechanization of agricultural production. Agricultural enterprises focus on post-production and the processing and circulation of agricultural products provided by family farms and cooperatives, and solve the problem of production and marketing, broaden the sale channels for agricultural products, and gradually improve the entire agricultural industry chain.

The paper also suggested that the bonding between smallholder farmers and NABEs is enhanced, with family farms supporting farmers to improve production specialization and land output rate, cooperatives focusing on organizing farm production and providing modern services, and agricultural enterprises focusing on leading and organizing farmers to enter the market. The formation of the agricultural production model of "small farms + NABEs" and "NABEs + NABEs" is the only way to build agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics and realize the development of NABEs specifically for China.

The following are a few minor suggestions

Authors have to explain the structure of agrarian economy in China, in terms of NABEs, cooperatives and leading enterprises in a thematic map for readers to understand clearly at the beginning of the paper.

Some sentences are not clear, needs proof reading by native English-speaking persons.

Example is given below: ‘the strongest aggregation scales of different NABEs are increasing, and the strongest aggregation scales of agricultural enterprises are larger than those of family farms and cooperatives in all agricultural areas’

The paper is highly relevant for India also given that its predominance of smallholder farmers, hence authors may try to enhance the scope by citing a few India literature. In section 5.3, authors may discuss about Indian so called Farmers producer Organisations (FPOs) by citing the references Cherukuri, R. R., & Reddy, A. A. (2014). Producer organisations in Indian agriculture: Their role in improving services and intermediation. South Asia Research, 34(3), 209-224 and Rani, C. R., & Reddy, A. A. (2013). Role of Institutions and Support Systems in Promoting Organic Farming-A Case of Organic Producer Groups in India. Asia-Pacific Journal of Rural Development, 23(2), 37-46.

The paper needs a moderate English language improvement for enhancing readability and wider readership.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Authors have to explain the structure of agrarian economy in China, in terms of NABEs, cooperatives and leading enterprises in a thematic map for readers to understand clearly at the beginning of the paper.

Response:

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your valuable comments. Based on your suggestions, we have added a structure chart of NABE development (line 55). This will enable the reader to have a better understanding of the timing of the development of NABE and the characteristics of the classification.

Some sentences are not clear, needs proof reading by native English-speaking persons.

Response:

Sincerely thank you for your valuable comments. Regarding the explanation of the meaning of the strongest aggregation scale, we have made further revisions in lines 515-516 (blue text) of the manuscript. In addition, you may refer to lines 332-335 and Fig. 3.

We have revised the language of the manuscript and uploaded the attachment to the system. In addition to this, we invited peer experts to revise the language again. We hope the revised manuscript could be acceptable for you.

3.The paper is highly relevant for India also given that its predominance of smallholder farmers, hence authors may try to enhance the scope by citing a few India literature. In section 5.3, authors may discuss about Indian so called Farmers producer Organisations (FPOs) by citing the references Cherukuri, R. R., & Reddy, A. A. (2014). Producer organisations in Indian agriculture: Their role in improving services and intermediation. South Asia Research, 34(3), 209-224 and Rani, C. R., & Reddy, A. A. (2013). Role of Institutions and Support Systems in Promoting Organic Farming-A Case of Organic Producer Groups in India. Asia-Pacific Journal of Rural Development, 23(2), 37-46.

Response:

We sincerely thank you for your valuable suggestions. From reading the literature, we found that the characteristics of agricultural operations in China are highly similar to those of the smallholder economy in India. Through revisions, we have also made a brief discussion and citation in section 6.3 of the manuscript (line 751-754).

The paper needs a moderate English language improvement for enhancing readability and wider readership.

Response:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

the topic chosen for your article seems really interesting because the methodology you adopted can easily be applied and replicated in other countries. It is therefore potentially publishable in this journal but, I think it requires a little further effort to make it truly appealing. In some passages of your manuscript I suggest to simplify the text to facilitate the reading. For example, when you comment the tables or the figures, it is not necessary to comment every single result represented in them but it’s enough to provide a key to reading or interpreting, and this should make the article more readable.

Please find below some suggestions that I hope will help to improve your work:

- I would suggest to shorten the title and abstract, they seems to me both too long;

- Pease specify acronyms the first time they are used;

- Line 17: after “:” the letter goes lowercase, so it must be “first” no “First”;

- Keywords: do not repeat words that are already in the title;

- Line 45: please give space before the “[]”, for example “farmers[1-3]” must be “farmers [1-3]”; this always applies;

- I suggest to put the description of the papers structure at the end of introduction part;

- please check the spaces between tables/figures and text (both before and after);

- Perhaps there are too many subparagraphs, I would try to reduce them in number (I mean eliminating the titles not the content, what is written is fine);

- line 218-219: please uniform the text, if you choose to use the bold you have to use it for all letters;

- line 225: when citing “Duyckaerts et al” the bibliographic reference is missing, please check;

- table 1: please check the spaces inside it;

- line 336-337: please check subparagraph title and table 2 title (I think they are reversed);

- in the tables I think it is better to put the column “Type” in full, without using acronyms;

- table 2: please use the indication of thousands in the numbers;

- table 3: please move it closer to the comment;

- table 4: I would also move this before;

- the headings of the columns of tables 2-4 I think it is better to put them in full, perhaps the acronyms are then used in the text;

- line 448: “4” must be “4.”, this also applies to paragraphs 5 and 6;

- line 449-458: just refer to table 1 without indicating all the variables again;

- anticipate figure 5;

- table 5: “has been” must be “Has been”;

- discussions: there is no comparison of your results with the results of other similar works;

- conclusions: the text from line 693 I believe should be a numbered / bulleted list;

- I suggest to added the clarification of the limits of the work and its future prospects;

- Please, review the editing of the references according to the standards of the journal.

The English writing is good although some parts could be simplified a bit. Try to write in simple and concise English.

Author Response

Reviewer 3：

I would suggest to shorten the title and abstract, they seems to me both too long;

Response:

We sincerely thank you for your valuable suggestions. We think this is a very good suggestion. At your suggestion, we have streamlined the title and abstract sections of the paper. These changes do not affect the content or framework of the paper.

Pease specify acronyms the first time they are used;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your careful reading. In response to your suggestions, we have revised the acronyms where they were first used (lines 8 and 22, blue text).

Line 17: after “:” the letter goes lowercase, so it must be “first” no “First”;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your careful reading. We apologize for our carelessness. At your suggestion, we have made a correction in line 17.

Keywords: do not repeat words that are already in the title;

Response:

Thank you very much for your suggestion, we have changed the keywords at your suggestion (line 31-32, blue text). The specific modifications are as follows:

new agricultural business entities; spatial aggregation; nine major agricultural regions; influence mechanism

4.Line 45: please give space before the “[]”, for example “farmers[1-3]” must be “farmers [1-3]”; this always applies;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your careful reading. We have corrected the bibliographic citations throughout the text and thank you for your corrections.

I suggest to put the description of the papers structure at the end of introduction part;

Response:

Thank you for your professional comments on our article. Following your suggestion, we have included a description of the structure of the paper at the end of the introduction (line 155-160). Thank you again for your suggestion. The changes are as follows:

The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the theoretical anal-ysis and research hypotheses about NABEs. Section 3 describes the study area and re-search methodology as well as the main data sources. Section 4 describes the spatial distribution characteristics of NABEs. Section 5 summarizes the influencing factors of the development of NABEs. Section 6 discusses and analyzes the results generated. Finally, the conclusion of this study is summarized in Section 7.

please check the spaces between tables/figures and text (both before and after);

Response:

Thank you for your professional comments on our article. Based on your suggestions, we have revised the entire text.

Perhaps there are too many subparagraphs, I would try to reduce them in number (I mean eliminating the titles not the content, what is written is fine);

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. As there are more types of new agricultural management subjects involved in this paper, in order to make the vein of the article look clearer, therefore, we have made a reasonable segmentation of the content of the article. Specifically, 3.1 focuses on spatial distribution, 3.2 focuses on the study of high-density areas, 3.3 focuses on the study of agglomeration levels, and 3.4 focuses on the study of agglomeration scales, with a different emphasis in each of the vignettes.

line 218-219: please uniform the text, if you choose to use the bold you have to use it for all letters;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We have revised the error in the full text, and thank you again for the suggestion.

line 225: when citing “Duyckaerts et al” the bibliographic reference is missing, please check;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. At your suggestion, we have cited the reference on line 313.

table 1: please check the spaces inside it;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. Based on your suggestions, we have revised Table 1 (line 368).

line 336-337: please check subparagraph title and table 2 title (I think they are reversed);

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We are very sorry for our careless mistake. We have corrected it (line 432-434). Thank you for the reminder.

in the tables I think it is better to put the column “Type” in full, without using acronyms;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We have changed all the types in the table to full names (line 433,508,549).

13.table 2: please use the indication of thousands in the numbers;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We have expressed the figures in Table 2 in thousands and checked them in full (line 433).

14.table 3: please move it closer to the comment;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. The location of Table 3 is already closest to the notes (line 467-506), and we have added further references to the specific location of Table 3 in the article, which is more clearly organized (line 484,492,497).

15.table 4: I would also move this before;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. The location of Table 4 is already closest to the notes (line 510-547), and we have added further references to the specific location of Table 4 in the article, which is more clearly organized (line 523,530,536).

the headings of the columns of tables 2-4 I think it is better to put them in full, perhaps the acronyms are then used in the text;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We have changed the question of the name of the new agricultural business entities in Table 2-4. However, given the large number of characters in the names of the nine agricultural regions, using the full names would have made the table more cumbersome. To make the table as readable as possible, we have retained the abbreviated form of the nine agricultural regions. The full names can be found in lines 236-240 of the article.

line 448: “4” must be “4.”, this also applies to paragraphs 5 and 6;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We are very sorry for our careless mistake. Thank you again for your suggestions.

line 449-458: just refer to table 1 without indicating all the variables again;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. In response to your suggestion, we have streamlined lines 553-557. For the full names of the variables, please refer to Table 1 on line 368.

19.anticipate figure 5;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. In response to your suggestion, we believe that our explanation of the numbers in Figure 5 is not specific enough, so we have made further revisions in lines 611 through 613. The numbers in the figure represent the r-value of each indicator calculated by correlation analysis. the larger the r-value, the stronger the explanatory power of the factor on the number of new ag-ricultural business entities generated.

table 5: “has been” must be “Has been”;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We are very sorry for our careless mistake. Thank you again for your suggestions.

discussions: there is no comparison of your results with the results of other similar works;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. Based on the suggestions you made, we have compared it with other similar works in the discussion section (line 626-629,635-637,649-650, blue text). Thanks again for your suggestions.

conclusions: the text from line 693 I believe should be a numbered / bulleted list;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We have made revisions based on your suggestions. Thank you again for your suggestions.

I suggest to added the clarification of the limits of the work and its future prospects;

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. Based on your suggestion, we have added the limitations of the research work in this paper and future perspectives in section 6.4（line 813-822）.Thanks again for your suggestion.

24.Please, review the editing of the references according to the standards of the journal.

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We edited the references according to the formatting requirements of the journal. Thanks again for your suggestion.

25.The English writing is good although some parts could be simplified a bit. Try to write in simple and concise English.

Response:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The reviewed study is interesting, concerns an important issue, and is scientific. The authors have well described the data sources and research methods used. They properly conducted the discussion and formulated appropriate conclusions. The structure of the study is correct. The use of various statistical methods in data analysis is noteworthy. In order to improve the study, I propose the following changes and additions.

1. The article should clearly define the purpose of the research. It is advisable to provide it both in the article's introduction and the abstract.

2. The selection of indicators presented in Table 1, which affect the development of farms, agricultural enterprises, and cooperatives, requires justification.

3. In a scientific study, it is advisable to formulate research hypotheses.

4. I encourage you to describe the structure of the study in the article's introduction.

Author Response

Reviewer 4

The article should clearly define the purpose of the research. It is advisable to provide it both in the article's introduction and the abstract.

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. In response to your suggestion, we have included the research purpose of this paper in lines 10 and 13(blue text) of the Abstract section, making the Introduction and Abstract both research purposes. Thanks again for your advice. The specific corrections are as follows:

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the spatial distribution pattern, aggregation scales, development mechanism and internal differences of various types of NABEs in different regions. It provides targeted ideas for alleviating regional differences in the development of NABEs in different agricultural regions.

The selection of indicators presented in Table 1, which affect the development of farms, agricultural enterprises, and cooperatives, requires justification.

Response:

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments on our articles. We add to the rationale for the selection of indicators in the manuscript (line 339-346, blue text). The changes are as follows:

There is no mature evaluation index system that can be used for research on the factors influencing the development of NABEs. The factors affecting the development of NABEs may be different because of the different production characteristics of each type of NABEs. Family farms are affected to a higher degree by topography and soil and water resources. The development of cooperatives is more scaled up relative to family farms and may be more affected by the level of mechanization and inputs and outputs. Agricultural enterprises are highly specialized and organized and may be more affected by the level of economic development.

In a scientific study, it is advisable to formulate research hypotheses.

Response:

Sincerely thank you for your valuable comments. Based on your suggestions, we have added a theoretical analysis and research hypotheses to the second section (lines 161-230, blue text) of the manuscript. The research hypotheses are as follows:

H1：There are regional differences in the distribution of NABEs, and their de-velopment is more prominent in regions with higher agricultural location advantages.

H2：The spatial aggregation characteristics of different types of NABEs are dif-ferent, with agricultural enterprises and cooperatives likely to have larger spatial ag-gregation scales than family farms.

H3：The influencing factors favored by the development of different NABEs vary, especially in their dependence on soil and water resources, the economic environment and the efficiency of production scale.

Hypothesis 1 is tested in lines 401-404 and 738-741 of the results analysis. Thank you again for your comments. Hypothesis 2 is tested in lines 538-544 of the results analysis. Hypothesis 2 was disproved and additional explanations of the findings were provided. Hypothesis 3 is tested on lines 557-559 of the results analysis, and the hypothesis is established and supplemented.

I encourage you to describe the structure of the study in the article's introduction.

Response:

Thank you for your professional comments on our article. Following your suggestion, we have included a description of the structure of the paper at the end of the introduction (line 155-160, blue text). Thank you again for your suggestion. The changes are as follows:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx