Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study identifies a novel application of an existing framework (ADKAR) to support sustainable agricultural transitions. The Introduction is well-written and logically arranged to explain the scope of the issue within the broader EU context, the framework applied, and three clearly defined and ordered objectives. I particularly appreciate the recognition that farming is a human endeavor that is dependent upon individuals and local communities. The Methods section is also well organized and gives detailed insight into the researchers’ thought process in developing the survey instrument. Tables in Methods provide an excellent summary of in-text discussion. The Results section is thorough and, while some aspects of Results might be more suited to the Discussion, I find keeping the analysis with the data as it is presented makes it easier to follow the authors’ process and would not recommend changing this structure. The Discussion section then takes a deeper dive in interpreting the analysis, connections to sustainability principles, implications/potential impacts, and limitations—again arranged in a logical and well thought out delivery. The ADKAR-S Index and authors' method for correlating the Index to farm performance appear to be unique contributions to the literature, as well as adaptable to other sustainability contexts.

Recommendations:

• The Introduction needs additional references to ensure that all values stated (for example lines 62, 63, 65) or claims made (for example, lines 89-90) are well-cited.
  • It would also be helpful to briefly explain what vertical integration means in a food animal production context—in Romania, are these farms individually or corporate owned/operated?
• The survey instrument used in this study should be included as a supplemental material or appendix.
• Results, Figure 2: The red/green indicators in the figure are too similar in shade and may be difficult to distinguish for some audiences. Recommend using both a different color combination AND changing one of the shapes so that both data sets are not represented by an “X”.
• In the Discussion section, subsections 4.2 and 4.3 currently have the same heading: Barriers and facilitators of change
  • Also, see lines 985-990: It might be worth including a cautionary note related to unintended consequences of change implementation, particularly since one outcome of the research is that larger integrated swine operations are better equipped and more likely to implement sustainability practices (as stated in lines 1009-1012). While the authors here explicitely suggest a public policy direction, it may be inferred that vertical integration is the best/only solution without consideration of the potential loss of independent local production, or the amount of influence over the production system that large vertically integrated corporations have.
  • There is also a bit of a “chicken and egg” issue that is unclear to me while reading through the study: Do farms have a higher ADKAR-S index because they are already engaging in sustainable practices (i.e., greater current sustainable behavior = higher index), or is it because they have (as the authors seem to suggest) a greater potential to do so (higher index = greater potential for sustainable behavior)? Clarity on this would be appreciated.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study is very interesting and useful, especially in relation to the fragmented agriculture of many Central and Eastern European countries. I have no reservations about the AKDAR method, but I have serious doubts about comparing AKDAR results with economic results for two important reasons:

1. There is a law of economies of scale, which means that smaller farms achieve significantly worse economic results, so this criterion alone raises doubts about the validity of using economic results for comparison. In studies from Poland, which also has fragmented agriculture, research was conducted on the profitability of production (unfortunately, these studies are now quite old, but the correlations have probably remained the same) depending on the scale and level of integration (https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/24498/?v=pdf). The differences in costs shown reached over 10%.
2. It is highly likely that small farms use fewer antibiotics because a smaller scale means fewer health problems, so they do not feel the need for change as much. Besides, they cannot afford expensive solutions. They also have less motivation to change, as production on a scale of less than 200 or perhaps 500 animals (I do not know the break-even point for pig production in Romania) is an additional activity and farmers have no motivation to learn and seek knowledge, let alone implement it, as the investment is unlikely to pay off. In this context, the lower consumption of antibiotics in the large farms surveyed further emphasises the importance of measures to reduce their use.

Therefore, without even reading the results of the study, I expect that there will be a strong correlation between high environmental awareness and economic results, as this will apply to large farms. I therefore believe that either at the beginning or in the limitations, reference should be made to the law of economies of scale (mandatory) and to point 2 (optional). It would be welcome if the results were presented broken down into three groups of farms of different sizes (as in Table 5).

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

Row 52 - also a major source of agricultural – I disagree, but it is a major emitter of HGH.

Rows 62-65 – you must be precise. It would be best to write first about the structure of farms, and then about the share of livestock in herds of up to 10 pigs and over 40 pigs, because I have the impression that sometimes you are talking about farms and sometimes about herds. It is essential to make a clear distinction, because later you compare it to the structure of the livestock population.

Rows 206-210 Participants were fully informed about the purpose of data collection and the voluntary nature of their involvement, and their explicit consent was obtained prior to participation. No personal identifiers were recorded, ensuring that all data remained anonymous and confidential throughout the study. – this information was provided a few sentences earlier and does not need to be repeated.

All part 2.2. rows 210-302 – the entire chapter has a lot of unnecessary repetitions. For example, the description of the 5 components of the AKDAR system is repeated. First, you write what you understand by the category ‘Awareness’ and a few paragraphs below you repeat a significant part of it and add an example question. Combine these two descriptions into one. The same applies to the interpretation of the results. This is also repeated. It is good to summarise in a table and expand on it in the text, but if something is already described, e.g. the results for 5, do it comprehensively, rather than describing it again after a few paragraphs.

Row 405 Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.72 to 0.85 across – previously it was 0.70-0.85. Which one is correct?

Rows 533-554 together with Table 4 do not add anything new, as this is already described above Chart 1.

We do not use the terms in the table below or the table/graph above, because if they are moved during the publishing process, there will be a problem. We always give the number!!!

Rows 757-758 first I want you to make the table out of this information 757and then I need a figure which represents the regression that is explained in the below 758paragraph - this is probably your internal comment.

Please send the file with changes in change mode.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf