Organic Food Needs More Land and Direct Energy to Be Produced Compared to Food from Conventional Farming: Empirical Evidence from the Czech Republic
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General Comments:
The paper investigates energy consumption and land performance under two different ways of farming – organic and conventional. The work contains an interesting topic, but the results of the research are very general. The conclusions are also very general. The issue has not been thoroughly investigated.
Specific comments:
Introduction:
- The introduction should not describe what is in each section (lines 142-146 is redundant)
- Please be more specific about the goal.
- Please provide research hypotheses
Results
- Please write the discussion as a separate subsection and exclude the discussion from the research results.
- Please create a discussion chapter
- In the discussion, please refer to the motives and barriers to running organic farms.
- Please, in the research results, perform the analysis of performance and energy consumption, agriculture production for groups of agricultural products (e.g. cereals, root crops, pulses, vegetables and fruits, animal production), because with the productivity of different products, costs and performance diversify.
- Please verify your bibliography, as there are incorrect entries there. [Lines 72, 112, 131, 214, 246, 289].
Conclusion
- Conclusions should be based on the research results of the authors of the article, not other authors.
- Please demonstrate theoretical and application conclusions.
- Conclusions should relate to the purpose of the article.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I read your manuscript with great interest. However, I have to say I really disagree with your argumentation and analysis.
Your whole argumentation refers to energy Input and agricultural output. However, environmental friendliness is not only relying on energy input. This is only a small part of sustainability in agriculture. You have to include much more factors to evaluate environmental impacts of agriculture such as soil quality (which is dramatically suffering by conventional agriculture), biodiversity, etc. Your extremely limited approach delivers completely misleading arguments towards "environmental friendliness". It is not surprising that the energy input (calculated like you did) per unit is higher in organic farming but this doesn't mean a lot.
An example for that is the following text quote from your manuscript (L316): "As mentioned above, organic production should be more environmentally friendly. With this idea in mind, energy consumption per unit of production for organic and conventional farming was analysed to express the energy needed to satisfy demand for food." Yes, energy is part of the carbon footprint of food, but only a part of it. Therefore, the result that "This made an organic agricultural product 1.7 times energy-consuming compared to the conventional one." might be true but it doesn't mean a lot if you exclude all other externalities of agriculture.
Another important issue: the total input of energy is not covered by your data (L221) (Energy consumption = costs of motor fuels and lubricants + costs of electricity + heating fuels). Where is the energy input e.g. for fertilizers, pesticides, etc. that are used in conventional farming? If you exclude all upstream input data from your analysis your results are not representing the real situation in view of energy. But again: This should be only part of your argumentation as you exclude all other factors tackling sustainability.
Finally, your results are not really traceable. In particular, I really don't get Table 2 - an essential part of your analysis. What do the numbers mean? AP/ha organic divided by AP/ha conventional? I would have expected one column for organic and one for conventional to see where AP, EC is higher.
Minor issues:
- missing references; e.g.: ... Tilman [Error! Reference source not found.]
- Food for the world: within your theoretical considerations you argue pro / con organic farming in view of feeding a growing world population. I think this should only be a side note because it is not part of your study.
- you did not tell readers why it is necessary to distinguish between ANC, non ANC for the purpose of your study.
- please explain why it is good and necessary to use time series data covering 20 years.
It could be promoted if you only refer to energy input (not arguing towards environmental friendliness) but then you have to include all up- and downstream energy sources. And you have to clearly refer to these limitations within your study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors adhered to the indicated comments.
Author Response
We sincerely thank to the Reviewer 1.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for the revision of your paper. You picked up my suggestion to reduce the significance of your analysis to energy input. Although I think that it would have been wise to estimate the total energy input up- and down-stream, I can live with your argumentation, in particular as you stress more than once that your analysis only comprises primary energy consumption.
Two minor points:
I think for the readers it would be really necessary not only to present your results in Table 2, but to deliver the original data in a separate table at least in the appendix containing AP, EC conventional and organic in separate columns. This would make the performance index more traceable.
Further, you write in your conclusions (L687) "We found that direct energy consumption per unit of product in the Czech Republic is 1.7 times higher when farming in an organic way in comparison to the conventional system". You really have to mention that this only valid for direct energy and might change significantly if the total energy input would have been included into the calculation. Otherwise, future quotings of this finding might be misleading if only reduced to the ratio.
My best wishes for your future research.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for the time and efforts you have again invested in our manuscript, and we hope that we have been able to address your final comments. We have revised our manuscript according to your comments, and we explain the changes in light of the comments below. All new changes in the manuscript are tracked.
Reviewer´s Comment:
I think for the readers it would be really necessary not only to present your results in Table 2, but to deliver the original data in a separate table at least in the appendix containing AP, EC conventional and organic in separate columns. This would make the performance index more traceable.
Response:
We would like to thank the reviewer for this comment. We have added to the Appendix two separate tables containing information on AP and EC in organic farming (Table 3) and conventional farming (Table 4). We hope this will increase the eligibility of the article for the readers.
Reviewer´s Comment:
Further, you write in your conclusions (L687) "We found that direct energy consumption per unit of product in the Czech Republic is 1.7 times higher when farming in an organic way in comparison to the conventional system". You really have to mention that this only valid for direct energy and might change significantly if the total energy input would have been included into the calculation. Otherwise, future quotings of this finding might be misleading if only reduced to the ratio.
Response:
We would like to thank the reviewer for accepting our explanation and division of total energy inputs into direct and indirect. To stress this fact in the conclusion part we have added the following sentence: Needless to say, that our findings are based only on the data of direct energy consumption and might change significantly if the total energy input would have been included into the calculation.
