Will Transaction Costs and Economies of Scale Tip the Balance in Farm Size in Industrial Agriculture? An Illustration for Non-Food Biomass Production in Germany

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

By their own admission the authors have created a stylized model to explore a partial equilibrium change in the German farm economy due to general technological change, as moderated by an assumed set of transaction costs. 

The work seems competent and complete, but the foundational assumptions make it hard to figure out whether it offers any real insight into the future of German farming. 

There seems to be an unstated but enduring concern for moderating farm size in Germany, which is not explained or justified. 

The narrow focus on transaction costs and new technology admittedly controls for many confounding factors, but at the cost of offering any real insight or policy advice on if/how the industry could change with different technology trajectories. The summary does not offer any greater clarity.

The writing is mostly fine, except pages 3 and 4 need some work to clean up.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The present paper develops a stylized model with two scenarios - the adoption of neutral-to-scale technologies and growing demand for plant-based biomass - to 16 anticipate the scale and direction of structural implications of industrial demand for non-food biomass in Germany during 2017 to 2030. The topic presented in this work is really interesting. However several challenges are required:

 

I analyze the single sections:

Abstract has inappropriate structure. I suggest to answer the following aspects: - general context - novelty of the work - methodology used (describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied) - main results and related interpretations.

Introduction: This section should briefly place the study in a wide context and emphasize why it is relevant carrying out the analysis. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. In this perspective, this section is too succinct and fails to effectively point out the relevance of your contribution towards the existing literature. I recommend the authors to improve the section based on two main points that have been already touched by the authors:

1. Better emphasizing the role of bioeconomy and its measurement.

Literature:

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719316655

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1573521416300082

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40888-020-00206-4

2. How policies might help (e.g. policy mix) for the transition (e.g. energy, etc,)

Literature

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629617302736?via%3Dihub

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620300025

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302117

 

Discussions: The discussion of the results is merely descriptive and the obtained evidence is flimsy due to the fact the outcomes are not supported by an adequate discussion in light of scientific literature. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible.

 

Conclusions: Conclusions must also be revised according to the previous comments. In particular, they should discuss practical and policy implications as well as future lines of research. As it stands now, they fail to extract all the juice of your work. 

 

I hope these comments might help in improving the paper and encourage the authors to move forward.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper needs a good technical edit.  While the additions added clarity they also added some confusing verbiage.

I am signalling to the editors that this paper is fine for what it does, but that I am not convinced it is appropriately placed in this special issue. I would have thought you might have linked your paper to new digital technologies (related to transaction costs) and maybe some of the bioprocesses that have varying economies of scale. That would have made the paper relevant to your audience.

I have left that judgement for the editors to make.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

All comments addressed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are happy to hear that you were satisfied with our revisions. Thank you again for your very helpful and constructive comments on our manuscript. Following further recommendations, we double-checked the language style and added a further reference to improve the fit of our study to the special issue.  In the manuscript, all changes are highlighted using "Track Changes" function.

 

Thank you once again for your time, interest, and your substantial help with this manuscript.

 

Sincerely,

the authors