Structural shifts in food basket composition of rural and urban Philippines: Implications for the food supply system

Subir Bairagi; Yacob Zereyesus; Sampriti Baruah; Samarendu Mohanty

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0264079

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 16, 2021
19 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - László Vasa, Editor PONE-D-21-19841 Structural Shifts in Food Basket Composition of Rural and Urban Philippines: Implications for Future Food Supply System PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Subir Bairagi, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by 17.08.2021. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I liked the structure of the manuscript, the coherence of the writing, as well as the design of the statistical methodology. However, my major concern is that the time series are rather outdated. Statistical Tables on Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) from the final results of the 2018 FIES are also available from March 2020. Still, your research covers data as of the year 2015 the latest. Therefore, your policy recommendations are less meaningful. I would recommend to include the 2018 survey data as well. Similarly, the literature review should include more papers from recent years (I found only 5-6 ones from the previous 3 years' coverage).In my opinion to validate your results you need to be more updated. Reviewer #2: The paper is a very nice work! Please add some methodological part to the abstract and write to main aim of the paper! It is missing now. Line 32-33. More recent data would be needed. Are they available? If yes, please add to the paper. It is missing the classical literature review chapter, please modify the introduction chapter and create a literature review chapter. The methodology and the discussion part are very well introduces and the main results are really valuable and novel! ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes:** Katalin Liptak [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r001
Revision 1
1 Oct 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1: I liked the structure of the manuscript, the coherence of the writing, as well as the design of the statistical methodology. Thank you for the positive appreciation of our paper and the constructive feedback. We have formulated our point-to-point responses to the comments in colored text. However, my major concern is that the time series are rather outdated. Statistical Tables on Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) from the final results of the 2018 FIES are also available from March 2020. Still, your research covers data as of the year 2015 the latest. Therefore, your policy recommendations are less meaningful. I would recommend to include the 2018 survey data as well. Your intuition is correct that policy recommendations are less meaningful with outdated data. We are fortunate to receive the FIES 2018 data from the Philippines Statistical Authority with a short period of time; otherwise, we may have to abandon this project. In the revised analysis, we have added the 2018 data, and our estimates of elasticities have changed, as expected. However, the main findings remained the same as before. Similarly, the literature review should include more papers from recent years (I found only 5-6 ones from the previous 3 years' coverage). In my opinion to validate your results you need to be more updated. Thank you. As also suggested by the other reviewer, in the revised manuscript, a separate section is entirely dedicated to a literature review on the food demand evolution with more recent papers (please see lines 101-164). However, if you think we have missed some vital food demand studies, please let us know. We are ready to address your further comments. The following new references have been added: Colen, L., Melo, P. C., Abdul-Salam, Y., Roberts, D., Mary, S., & Gomez Y Paloma, S. (2018). Income Elasticities for Food, Calories and Nutrients Across Africa: A Meta-Analysis. Food Policy, 77, 116–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.04.002 Cornelsen, L., Green, R., Turner, R., Dangour, A. D., Shankar, B., Mazzocchi, M., & Smith, R. D. (2015). What happens to patterns of food consumption when food prices change? Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis of food price elasticities globally. Health Economics, 24(11), 1548–1559. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec Femenia, F. (2019). A Meta-Analysis of the Price and Income Elasticities of Food Demand (N 19-03; SMART – LERECO). Fukase, E., & Martin, W. (2020). Economic growth, convergence, and world food demand and supply. World Development, 132, 104954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104954 Green, R., Cornelsen, L., Dangour, A. D., Honorary, R. T., Shankar, B., Mazzocchi, M., & Smith, R. D. (2013). The effect of rising food prices on food consumption:systematic review with meta-regression. BMJ (Online), 347(7915), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f3703 Hussein, M., Law, C., & Fraser, I. (2021). An analysis of food demand in a fragile and insecure country: Somalia as a case study. Food Policy, 101(April), 102092. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102092 Korir, L., Rizov, M., & Ruto, E. (2020). Food security in Kenya: Insights from a household food demand model. Economic Modelling, 92(July), 99–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2020.07.015 Lokuge, M. N., Zivkovic, S., Lange, K., & Chidmi, B. (2019). Estimation of a censored food demand system and nutrient elasticities: A cross-sectional analysis of Sri Lanka. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 22(5), 717–729. https://doi.org/10.22434/IFAMR2019.0031 Ogundari, K., & Abdulai, A. (2013). Examining the Heterogeneity in Calorie-Income Elasticities: A Meta-Analysis. Food Policy, 40, 119–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.03.001 Reviewer #2: The paper is a very nice work! We appreciate the time you spent reviewing our paper. Thank you for the positive appreciation of our paper and the constructive feedback. We have formulated our point-to-point responses to the comments in colored text. 1. Please add some methodological part to the abstract and write to main aim of the paper! It is missing now. As you suggested, we have revised the abstract, which reads as: “Price and expenditure elasticities are estimated for seven food categories for rural and urban Filipino households, using Stone–Lewbel (SL) price indices and the quadratic almost-ideal demand system (QUAIDS) model. We used multiple years (2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018) of the Philippines Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) to estimate the food demand system. The results show that rice is a normal good for most households, particularly for rural consumers. However, it is an inferior good for the top 30% of rural Filipinos and the top 40% of urban Filipinos. As income increases, such wealthy households tend to replace their rice-dominated diet with nutrient-dense food products. Female-headed households, younger households, and households with educated members consume significantly more animal proteins such as meat and dairy products.” 2. Line 32-33. More recent data would be needed. Are they available? If yes, please add to the paper. We managed to get the FIES 2018 data, and the new data were added to the analysis. Finally, the relevant discussion was updated accordingly with the new insights. 3. It is missing the classical literature review chapter, please modify the introduction chapter and create a literature review chapter. As you suggested, we have added a separate literature section in the revised manuscript. Please see lines 101-164. 4. The methodology and the discussion part are very well introduces and the main results are really valuable and novel! Thank you. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r002
3 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - László Vasa, Editor PONE-D-21-19841R1Structural Shifts in Food Basket Composition of Rural and Urban Philippines: Implications for the Future Food Supply SystemPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bairagi, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by 10.11.2021. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, László Vasa, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: The Authors made a lot of modifications on the paper. They made a new structure of the paper in order to make their aims and the methods much clearer. They added some new literature! They revised the abstract and the new abstract is much more better. I can accept the paper for publishing. Reviewer #3: The paper is a good piece of food consumption research. The abstract should be more compact, indicating the goals of the research or the research question as well. However, these are missing from the paper anyway, so in the introduction, the research goals/questions should be indicated. The literature review is well improved. I recommend extending it with these sources from Central Europe (where, due to the transition period, similar tendencies in food consumption could be observed): https://ince.md/uploads/files/1455801255_maketa-es-2-2012.pdf (Consumption characteristics of branded meat products in Hungary: the value chain approach); https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338431810_Evaluating_consumer_behavior_for_consumption_of_milk_and_cheese_in_Gjilan_Region_Kosovo It is not clear why the the data chapter is before the methodology description. I think it would be more logical to regard the data chapter as a part of the methodology I recommend the publication of this research paper after these minor improvements. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: Yes:** Katalin Lipták Reviewer #3: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r003
Revision 2
19 Nov 2021 Author Response Please see the attached file. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE_Reviewer_comments_R3_v1.0.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r004
3 Feb 2022 Decision Letter - László Vasa, Editor Structural Shifts in Food Basket Composition of Rural and Urban Philippines: Implications for the Food Supply System PONE-D-21-19841R2 Dear Dr. Bairagi, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: The Authors made a lot of modifications on the paper. They made a new structure of the paper in order to make their aims and the methods much clearer. They added some new literature! They revised the abstract and the new abstract is much more better. I can accept the paper for publishing. Reviewer #3: The authors improved the paper based on the reviewers' comments. The paper is now eligible for publication in Plos One. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: Yes:** Katalin Lipták Reviewer #3: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r005
Formally Accepted
22 Mar 2022 Acceptance Letter - László Vasa, Editor PONE-D-21-19841R2 Structural Shifts in Food Basket Composition of Rural and Urban Philippines: Implications for the Food Supply System Dear Dr. Bairagi: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Prof. Dr. László Vasa Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264079.r006

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