Governance of Ecosystem Services in Agroecology: When Coordination is Needed but Difficult to Achieve
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
In its substance, the article is original and interesting in the context of favouring the agroecological transition. The paper structure is clear, but the manuscript requires English editing to make it easier to read. Moreover, I wonder why the model referred to in §2 (Bayesian network model) is not explicitly presented, as well as its outcomes? More generally, some explicit results - presented as figures or tables - would be appreciated.
In the following I started suggesting some modifications, but a thorough English editing is necessary.
ABSTRACT:
L19: it may rather be : "to control pest" or "for pest control"
L18, L20, etc.: prefer the past (please check all along the paper): "was to unravel", "mobilized", etc.
L19-23: three times "hindrances"...could you avoid such repetitions?
L36: "etc."
L43: "leads to lower" --> maybe you could simplify using something like "reduces the"
L43: "in reverse" seems incorrect
L60: "agroecological" practices ?
L97: "to our knowledge"
L99-102: Please check the relevance of tenses...:"we were interested in", "to do so we used", etc.
L99-100: Change "we were interested in" with something like "we investigated/studied ..."
L100-107: difficult to read...
L101-102: Better introduce the framework you applied
MATERIAL AND METHODS:
L116: be consistent with "souht-west" along the paper
L117: "form" rather than "formed"
L131: "which limit"
L133: their efficiency
RESULTS:
L175: check your sentence
L245: could you provide a reference for this Ecophyto plan?
DISCUSSION:
L303-305: not much is presented about your Bayesian network model (only cited L169-173). Why don't you present it in §2 (or at least in an Annex)? Otherwise it is hard to get where your results come from.
L343-344: did you a thorough literature survey? Could you provide more references?
CONCLUSIONS:
L385: "in this article" --> "in our study"...
L403: I guess it is the INRA metaprogramme SMACH?
Author Response
Authors’ answers to Reviewer’s reports:
Thank you all for your constructive feedbacks. It is very much appreciated. You will find below our detailed answers (in italics) to your comments directly into your individual report. We quote and mention line numbering according to the word version with hidden track changes.
Authors’ answers to Reviewer 1
Dear authors,
In its substance, the article is original and interesting in the context of favouring the agroecological transition. The paper structure is clear, but the manuscript requires English editing to make it easier to read. Moreover, I wonder why the model referred to in §2 (Bayesian network model) is not explicitly presented, as well as its outcomes? More generally, some explicit results - presented as figures or tables - would be appreciated.
In the following I started suggesting some modifications, but a thorough English editing is necessary.
Our Answer: Thanks for your feedback. The paper went through a thorough English editing with a professional service.
We don’t introduce much details about the Bayesian network because specific results have been published in two separate non open source papers. We now invite the reader that would like more details about these papers; line 191-192: “More details about the Bayesian network model and results of each scenario are presented in [40,41].”.
ABSTRACT:
L19: it may rather be : "to control pest" or "for pest control"
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L18, L20, etc.: prefer the past (please check all along the paper): "was to unravel", "mobilized", etc.
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L19-23: three times "hindrances"...could you avoid such repetitions?
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process. It only appears once.
L36: "etc."
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L43: "leads to lower" --> maybe you could simplify using something like "reduces the"
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L43: "in reverse" seems incorrect
Our answer: Removed through the English editing process.
L60: "agroecological" practices ?
Our answer: Not sure what the problem is in this case. We also use in the manuscript “agroecological ways of farming”. We hope it is understandable.
L97: "to our knowledge"
Our answer: Taken out through the English editing process.
L99-102: Please check the relevance of tenses...:"we were interested in", "to do so we used", etc.
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L99-100: Change "we were interested in" with something like "we investigated/studied ..."
Our answer: Part removed through the English editing process.
L100-107: difficult to read...
Our answer: Improved through the English editing process. (Equivalent paragraph is now between lines 108 & 121)
L101-102: Better introduce the framework you applied
Our answer: We added a full new section (2.2. line 143 to 159) in the materials and methods to detail the framework we applied:
“We adopted a conceptual framework that uses the lens of ecosystem services to characterize social interdependencies between people and highlight potential or existing cooperation between them [24]. This framework proposes starting by identifying the key ecosystem services at stake in a specific issue – in our case, in concerted landscape management for biological pest control. Next, the beneficiaries and providers of the ecosystem services, as well as the intermediaries that indirectly influence decision-making, are identified. Finally, the social interdependencies between these stakeholders are identified and analysed by exploring (i) cognitive framing of interdependencies, (ii) institutions, (iii) levels of organization, and (iv) power relations. This study focuses on the first two dimensions. When identifying the cognitive framing of interdependencies, i.e. the stakeholders’ representations of these interdependencies, we aimed to assess in particular the degree to which stakeholders perceive themselves as interdependent with other stakeholders. This is indeed critical in terms of motivation for collective action, because if people do not feel mutually interdependent, i.e., if they do not feel that they need one another to solve a problem or improve their situation, they are unlikely to invest time and energy in collective action [24,39]. The second focus aimed at finding out whether the institutional context favoured landscape-scale collaboration between farmers for biological pest control.”
MATERIAL AND METHODS:
L116: be consistent with "south-west" along the paper
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process. It reads southwest throughout the paper.
L117: "form" rather than "formed"
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L131: "which limit"
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L133: their efficiency
Our answer: Removed through the English editing process.
RESULTS:
L175: check your sentence
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process. It now reads (line 196 to 199):
“Figure 2 summarizes the main components of the socio-ecological system using the conceptual framework developed [24]. It represents the key social interdependencies at stake in the potential use of SNH in landscapes for biological pest control, and the key stakeholders’ cognitive framing of these interdependencies.”
L245: could you provide a reference for this Ecophyto plan?
Our answer: Reference is now provided line 258: “They included individuals that had links to government agencies and public pesticide reduction policies (Ecophyto plan, see [18]), had adopted agroecological and/or organic practices, or were conventional farmers with an independent distribution network (not the dominant multinational company).”. The reference is : « Potier, D. Pesticides et agro-écologie - Les champs du possible; 2014 » which is an official report about the plan.
DISCUSSION:
L303-305: not much is presented about your Bayesian network model (only cited L169-173). Why don't you present it in §2 (or at least in an Annex)? Otherwise it is hard to get where your results come from.
Our answer: We now more explicitly indicate that our Bayesian model has been published in details in two papers ([40] Salliou et al. 2017 and [41] Salliou et al. 2019). For property rights reasons it’s not easy to integrate elements from these papers into this new manuscript. It now reads (line 186 – 192): “With local stakeholders, we co-constructed models to simulate different facets of the socio-ecological system regarding biological pest control in the area. In particular, a Bayesian network model was co-constructed to integrate the different types of knowledge. Simulations were conducted with the stakeholders to explore the potential of landscape-based biological pest control [40], as well as alternative pest control strategies. More details about the Bayesian network model and each scenario are presented in [40, 41].”
L343-344: did you a thorough literature survey? Could you provide more references?
The statement about “For example, a recent major debate about the herbicide glyphosate highlighted the health concerns of the majority of the general public and led to the planned phasing out of the molecule” refers to public polls like the following (in French): https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/environnement/pesticides/glyphosate/huit-francais-sur-dix-estiment-qu-il-faut-interdire-le-glyphosate_2438395.html which established in 2017 that 81% of surveyed individuals consider that “Glyphosate should be banned because it is potentially dangerous for health”. I have not found scientific reference which would sustain this view from public surveys.
CONCLUSIONS:
L385: "in this article" --> "in our study"...
Our answer: Corrected through the English editing process.
L403: I guess it is the INRA metaprogramme SMACH?
Our answer: Yes indeed. Corrected through the English editing process.
Reviewer 2 Report
The introduction to this manuscript is vague, and basically makes the point that increasing SNH could under some circumstances enhance biological pest control. There are no specifics, no estimates of magnitude, no idea given of how much land or how much pest control could be obtained, and particularly how that could substitute for pesticides and what the economic (life cycle) impact would be.
With that degree of uncertainty and lack of clear outcomes, I wouldn't be interested in developing a regional coordination to enhance landscape SNH either. I think there are valuable points to be made about the uncertainty in ecosystem services and the reluctance of farmers to invest in complex and expensive landscape alterations given that uncertainty. Certainly understanding farmer attitudes and motivations is needed to improve the diversity of ecosystem functions and landscape diversity. This paper does a much better job of outlining the individual and infrastructure obstacles to adoption of alternative technologies, even though it does not adequately justify SNH as an effective practice. The idea of individual vs community novel practices is also relevant, although the exclusion nets seem to be dropped in randomly rather than well-integrated into the argument.
I do think it is important to publish this sort of negative analysis, but I would like to see a more critical treatment of the potential effects of landscape management, positive and negative. Right now the underlying assumption is that the agroecological way is inherently better, where "better" is not clearly quantified. If the farmers thought it was better for their purposes, they would adopt it.
Calling for "radical redesign" is perhaps not helpful - what other outcomes could be more feasible? Or is the answer really, "if we can't get the whole thing then why bother?"
Author Response
Authors’ answers to Reviewer’s reports
Thank you all for your constructive feedbacks. It is very much appreciated. You will find below our detailed answers (in italics) to your comments directly into your individual report. We quote and mention line numbering according to the word version with hidden track changes.
Authors’ answers to Reviewer 2
The introduction to this manuscript is vague, and basically makes the point that increasing SNH could under some circumstances enhance biological pest control. There are no specifics, no estimates of magnitude, no idea given of how much land or how much pest control could be obtained, and particularly how that could substitute for pesticides and what the economic (life cycle) impact would be.
Our answer: The literature is quite plentiful on the relation from landscape parameters (such as SNH) to ecological processes (such as enhanced natural enemies). We quote this literature in our paper and it’s the state-of-the-art in this regard (Bianchi et al. 2006, Veres, el al. 2013, Karp et al. 2018). However, the literature is indeed very scarce about specifics, otherwise we would have indicated it. We now mention the work of Östman and colleagues who established a more precise relation between landscape and yield, but such studies remains very rare.
We added Line 54-56: “For example, landscapes with abundant field margins and perennial crops have been correlated with lower aphid establishment (Östman et al. 2003) and higher yields in spring barley in Sweden (Östman et al. 2001).”
We also specified that the ecological research for more specifics is under way (line 70-71): “From an ecological perspective, operationalizing the potential of biological pest control and making it mainstream is still at the research stage for landscape ecologists [20,21].”
Our intent is to start thinking about the social challenge of coordination even though the ecological literature is not stabilized on the specifics.
With that degree of uncertainty and lack of clear outcomes, I wouldn't be interested in developing a regional coordination to enhance landscape SNH either. I think there are valuable points to be made about the uncertainty in ecosystem services and the reluctance of farmers to invest in complex and expensive landscape alterations given that uncertainty.
Our answer: we agree with such statement. For this reason it is now indicated (line 226-232):
“In short, the capacity of a high proportion of SNH in a landscape to enhance pest control remains difficult to assess [43,44]; indeed, landscape ecologists have recently put forward five hypotheses why it can fail [21]. This underlines the high degree of epistemic uncertainty regarding the underlying agroecological processes that may allow SNH to deliver ecosystem services. Farmers in the studied area have developed optimized cultivation systems regarding pest control and have low tolerance for such a high level of uncertainty. This prevents farmers from investing in landscape engineering.”
Certainly understanding farmer attitudes and motivations is needed to improve the diversity of ecosystem functions and landscape diversity. This paper does a much better job of outlining the individual and infrastructure obstacles to adoption of alternative technologies, even though it does not adequately justify SNH as an effective practice. The idea of individual vs community novel practices is also relevant, although the exclusion nets seem to be dropped in randomly rather than well-integrated into the argument.
Our answer: Our intent was not to justify this practice as efficient but as a potentially interesting practice. In this sense, if as a reader you do not feel convinced it will work this is consistent with our intent because it was not our intention to “sell” this practice. Our objective was to introduce the idea it was a practice with some potential. Our fundamental intent was to look into the underlying coordination challenges of such a potential practice. In this sense we took position on the social side of the problem (how stakeholders could make it work by knowing key hindrances?) rather than on the ecological side (under which ecological conditions a landscape is able to deliver pest control ecosystem service?).
Exclusion nets are a rising component in the studied area but this technology is not widely spread yet. We did not want to overstress this element but we think it is important to mention its existence and possible interaction with the explored landscape-based approach.
I do think it is important to publish this sort of negative analysis, but I would like to see a more critical treatment of the potential effects of landscape management, positive and negative. Right now the underlying assumption is that the agroecological way is inherently better, where "better" is not clearly quantified. If the farmers thought it was better for their purposes, they would adopt it.
Our answer: We share this opinion that the agroecological way is not inherently better. The fact that we identified serious challenges to coordination and presented the difficulty to have robust results in the ecological literature shows we do not seek to hide the difficulties of such a potential pest control strategy. We are of the opinion however that in the theoretical situation where benefits from this agroecological approach would be certain enough for farmers to be willing to adopt it, coordination is still a challenge and sub-optimal equilibrium can be reached (in the sense of a sub-optimal Nash equilibrium for example), and may be difficult to achieve.
Calling for "radical redesign" is perhaps not helpful - what other outcomes could be more feasible? Or is the answer really, "if we can't get the whole thing then why bother?"
Our answer: radical redesign is indeed one possibility we develop. We also mention that consumer preference can modify public policies (line 340-341): “consumer preferences could play an important role in shaping public policy to challenge established supply chains”. The example of glyphosate shows a non-radical change which can have significant consequences on the available choice of agricultural practices at the farmer level. We also mention that the relation of farmers and science to uncertainty may play a role : (line 365-366): “agroecology may require farmers to accept uncertainties rather than trying to reduce them” and (line 368-370): “It is also possible that the inherent variability of ecological processes and the difficulty of predicting their behaviour make agroecology less desirable to fund”. On this regard we suggest some key follow-up studies (line 374-376): “In this regard, a real case of landscape engineering with the aim of increasing SNH that was initiated 10 years ago [22] should be investigated in an impact assessment, as this could help respond to outstanding questions.”
Reviewer 3 Report
Overall, this revised manuscript is excellent!
The only issue is the large number of small corrections needed to the English. I made many small corrections to the first 500 lines or so. But because the text is in a pdf file, it takes so much longer to correct the English in a pdf file than with a Word file.
But the content is excellent and will lead to many discussions by farmers and their groups as well as other actors..It is my opinion that once the editorial staff have corrected the remaining small errors in the English, this article can be published.
Author Response
Authors’ answers to Reviewer’s reports:
Thank you all for your constructive feedbacks. It is very much appreciated. You will find below our detailed answers (in italics) to your comments directly into your individual report. We quote and mention line numbering according to the word version with hidden track changes.
Authors’ answers to Reviewer 3
Overall, this revised manuscript is excellent!
The only issue is the large number of small corrections needed to the English. I made many small corrections to the first 500 lines or so. But because the text is in a pdf file, it takes so much longer to correct the English in a pdf file than with a Word file.
But the content is excellent and will lead to many discussions by farmers and their groups as well as other actors. It is my opinion that once the editorial staff have corrected the remaining small errors in the English, this article can be published.
Our answer: Thanks for this very positive feedback. The manuscript has been reviewed and edited through a professional service.
