(In)Sustainability of the Territory of Chapada Do Apodi-Rn (Brazil): The Expansion of Agribusiness versus the Impacts of Traditional Farmers and Local Rural Communities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The collected research material is interesting for the reader, but the description of the research carried out requires correction and supplementation. The article raises doubts about the formulation of the title of the work in the context of the main goal and specific research goals as well as the considerations presented in the empirical part. The title refers to the sustainability of the territory, which is not reflected in the text of the article.The proposed phrases in the above-mentioned parts are unclear and not explained in the relevant part of the work, there is no indication / explanation of the relationship between the concepts included in the title and the objectives of the work in the text. There are sometimes imprecise wording about the description of the results.
2. The summary shows a slightly different purpose than in the methodological part (Are conflicts an important element of the work or not).
3. In the introduction, there is a certain chaos, consisting in mixing up the threads. It is not known whether the considerations are general in nature or rather relate to the examined country (Brazil).Generally, there is no good grounding of the research problem in theory. In the introduction, it would be important to show the importance of the issue and the validity of the research carried out in general, not only the description of the situation and referring to the specificity of Brazil.
4. The method section is not clear enough. From the methodological part (from the introduction 2.1. Methodological Procedures) it is not clear what are the relationships between the different stages of research (described later) and what impact this has on the achievement of research goals. In section 2.1.1. a very laconic and brief description of the activities is included, which makes it possible to question the legitimacy of separating such short parts as separate fragments of the work.
5. The conclusions do not refer directly to the stated goal related to spatial planning and to the terms / dependencies announced in the title.In the conclusions, it would be worthwhile to indicate whether and how the conclusions from the research in Chapada do Apodi can be applied to the entire country (Brazil).

 

Detailed comments:

4 - What does "Fragilities" mean (there is no reference to this in the article)

111-112 “profile of the population of rural communities’ – What does it mean? In the remaining parts of the article, “rural communities” appear, therefore the question is whether it is about rural communities or rural communes

121- „an investigation of documents” – what documents exactly

128- explain the concept of "technical visits" and indicate what they were, how many there were

134- explain how the number of selected households relates to the total number of households in the studied area and what it follows for the inference

145 – table 1 – explain why data is missing for some Rural Communities

219- table 2/table 3/table 4 - unclear descriptions (Quantitative, Time ??? Date??? e.t.c), % cut from lines

269- table 4 – What does "x" mean?

The numbering order of figures needs to be corrected.

Author Response

Synthesis of the amendments attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The content of the paper is confused and lacks of solid methodologies that might answer to the research questions.

The methodology used is predominantly based on descriptive statistics that sometimes lead to “strong conclusions”. Specifically:

• In the paragraph 3.2, after the descriptive statistics used to illustrates the socio-economic profile of the communities located in Chapada do Apodi (Table 2), authors state that “in view of the considerably low situation of household income and schooling, there is a predominance of socioeconomic vulnerability among residents that may make it impossible to improve their quality of life prospects”. This is a strong affirmation that is not based on a consistent analysis. Why this precarious condition of the majority of community’s members cannot be improved? Are income level and education level the only element that affect the precarious conditions of communities analysed? What about food security level, assets owned, land owned or the number of family members? In synthesis there are many other elements to be considered before conclude that a family Is irremediable poor and hopeless.
• In the paragraph 3.3 the linkage between water supply system and housing conditions with disease cannot be determined with simple percentages. A regression model could be used to identify such relationship.
• In the paragraph 3.4 the content of Table 4 is not enough to conclude that “the process of capital territorialization in the agrarian space of Chapata do Apodi/RN alters the local production process due to insertion of technological innovations, methods of appropriation, constructions and management of the territory”.

Finally, the impact that the activities of agribusinesses have on rural families is not analysed in depth. To do this it should be used an econometric model (e.g. regression model) aimed at analyse how agribusiness's activities affect health and living conditions of local communities.

Author Response

Synthesis of the amendments attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors! Thank you for the fundamental research presented in this article. In the opinion of the reviewer, the conclusion about the positive effect of irrigation reclamation is quite justified, but the opinion on the limits of the use of such a resource-intensive reclamation technique for farmers is interesting.

Author Response

Synthesis of the amendments attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Further doubts are raised by the wording of the aim of the main article, which is blurred (line 110-112) - especially in the context of research and formulated final conclusions. A vague target b (line 113-114), which is also worded differently than the authors indicate in response to the reviews. Descriptions in Table 3-4 are vague. To improve the elelemnt of the bibliography (line 627).

Author Response

Rewiewer 01

Further doubts are raised by the wording of the aim of the main article, which is blurred (line 110-112) - especially in the context of research and formulated final conclusions. A vague target b (line 113-114), which is also worded differently than the authors indicate in response to the reviews. Descriptions in Table 3-4 are vague. To improve the elemnt of the bibliography (line 627).

Changes

The present work has as general objective to investigate the spatial planning of the Brazilian semi-arid from the experience of coexistence and conflicts in Chapada do Apodi-RN between family agriculture and agribusiness. For this, we list the following specific objectives: a) to mention the history of family farming in the study area; b) identify rural communities and environmental perception of the local population; c) determine the environmental sanitation conditions of the rural communities analyzed; d) to characterize the establishment of the irrigated perimeter in the region and to study the environmental impacts of agribusiness in the territory studied.

 

Setting goals: “The present work has as general objective to investigate the conditions of family agriculture and the respective environmental impacts of agribusiness” to meet the purpose of the research and the conclusions of the work. Thus, the objective will meet the main result of the work that refers to the interferences of agribusiness in the activities developed by family farming.

 

Change in the abstract objective.

 

Modification in justification. Line 95-97. “to investigate the spatial planning of the Brazilian semi-arid from the experience of coexistence and conflicts caused in Chapada do Apodi-RN between family agriculture and the expansion of agribusiness”.

 

Table 3. Environmental sanitation of the communities of Chapada do Apodi/RN e and correlation between prevalence of diseases and sanitation variables.

 

¹ Significant correlation between sanitation variables and diseases prevalent in the locality when p<0,05

 

Specified the caption for “Table 4. Characterization of agricultural enterprises in Chapada do Apodi/RN.”

 

50. Pereira, G.R.; Cuellar, M.D.Z. Conflitos pela água em tempos de seca no Baixo Jaguaribe, Estado do Ceará. Estudos Avançados. 2015, 29, 115-137. https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0103-40142015000200008

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The content of the paper was improved with some additional methodologies aimed at answer to the research questions. Specifically, a multiple regression model was used to verify how the inadequate sanitation conditions can favour the manifestation of diseases (paragraph 3.3). Furthermore, a regression model aimed at analyse how agribusiness's activities affect health and living conditions of local communities was introduced (paragraph 3.5). 

However, the discussion of the results obtained is confused and too synthetic. It could be better to add Tables illustrating all the results and then discuss in depth some of the parameters obtained (e.g. coefficients, p-value, R² ...). 

 

Author Response

Rewiewer 02

The content of the paper was improved with some additional methodologies aimed at answer to the research questions. Specifically, a multiple regression model was used to verify how the inadequate sanitation conditions can favour the manifestation of diseases (paragraph 3.3). Furthermore, a regression model aimed at analyse how agribusiness's activities affect health and living conditions of local communities was introduced (paragraph 3.5).

However, the discussion of the results obtained is confused and too synthetic. It could be better to add Tables illustrating all the results and then discuss in depth some of the parameters obtained (e.g. coefficients, p-value, R² ...).

 

Changes

This implies that the mismanagement of water resources used by the population associated with unhealthy and inadequate conditions in the infrastructure sanitation governs, provide a possible greater exposure of the inhabitants of this region to the occurrence of diseases.

It is also noticed that the correlations between the form of supply, form of treatment and priority use of water presented significant results through multiple regression. However, the other correlations between the occurrence of diseases and sanitation variables, as shown in Table 3, were not statistically significant. It is emphasized that the results presented between the correlations should be analyzed more thoroughly in a prolonged time period.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx