Urban Agriculture in Great Bandung Region in the Midst of Commercialization, Food Insecurity, and Nutrition Inadequacy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I thoroughly reviewed the manuscript entitled "Urban agriculture in Great Bandung Region in the midst of commercialization, food insecurity, and nutrition inadequacy" The topic of this paper is interesting although the manuscript is well written and the aim and story is defined properly. 

It would be beneficial for those working on urban agriculture which is an emerging field to address the nutritional security and sustainable development goals. The article has been evaluated in terms of both scientific merit and typing rules. Some corrections and recommendations are made as follow. However, after the article has been corrected according to the recommendations and corrections, it is suitable for publication.

Line                                                    

34 - pre- and post- 

34 - 24 h

44- add appropriate keywords which are not mentioned in the title 

61-62 - rewrite the sentence 

86-87- check the format of the sentence 

115-117- not clear what you want to convey 

159- mention only FIES

162-167- all the points you mentioned i the running text, could be given in bullet form to have more visibility and significance 

172-173 make first letter small of all words

General observations 

Use UA for urban agriculture in the manuscript as this is in highly repeated words

Curtail introduction words and stick to the major objective of the current study 

Write USD only after the money amount not before 

Rewrite the discussion in a precise manner to justify your results and future perspective 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind suggestions and comments, below we send you the response of the suggestions.

Best Regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Nice paper! Only few suggestions and comments.

1. Please pay attention and check if the article is written in accordance with the editorial requirements of the publisher.

2. Editorial changes should be made to the notation of the literature.

3. Have analyzes been compared in other regions/countries? How is it on other continents?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind suggestions and comments, below we send you the response of the suggestions.

Best Regards,
Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In Indonesia, the share of labor in agriculture (29%) is more than twice the share of agriculture in GDP (13%). As people move out of farming into other sectors, they raise their income substantially. In addition, the population density in Greater Bandung (2000 per km2 and rising) means there is limited land for farming. It takes strong reasons to try to keep them attached to farming. You present such arguments: 1. Most of the farmers are housewives and they might have a low opportunity cost. 2. Agriculture, especially subsistence, is lower risk and can provide nutrients not otherwise available to low-income families. 3. Local agriculture can supply local markets with foods otherwise too expensive or unavailable.

However, you have a sharp distinction between subsistence and commercial urban farming, while there may be more of a continuum. Reality moves from the family with a few pots with tomatoes or chili plants to a backyard grove of mango or durian trees, and much in between. (When I was in the Puncak, farmers grew their own vegetables with limited pesticides but for market sale they used quite toxic chemicals resulting in nice looking produce. Does this happen in Greater Bandung?) What type of farm is most likely to supply local markets at reasonable prices with healthy produce? Is that the type to be supported? Is the goal to provide all urban families with healthy food choices, or to get each family to grow their own? Or is specialization better, with some growing fruit, others vegetables, and yet other families raising chickens or ducks?

More generally, if there are other things that housewives can do to earn money and buy more and better food, should those things be promoted as much or more than home gardens? Some have small shops, some sew or cut hair, etc. If land is very scarce, many families will have very limited opportunity to grow much. If the goal is to raise incomes and knowledge about nutrition, it might not involve urban food growing as a priority activity relative to nutrition education and general skill and income-earning investments. It is this lack of thinking about alternatives that is missing.

The other problem is that even in community gardens, there is often a problem of security. Pests may be fungal, viral, insect, animal, or human. There is risk in any activity, commercial or subsistence. Weighing the risks and deciding what mix of activities reduces them enough is complicated.It is here that urban gardening may help, to a degree. As you say, its contribution is typically marginal to income but can be important for nutrition.

It is hard to know if the survey results are highly influenced by Covid impacts and therefore how useful the data collected are for policy insights in normal times. This aspect could be discussed. Are money incomes usually higher?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind suggestions and comments, below we send you the response of the suggestions.

Best Regards,

Authors 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf