PONE-D-22-04453Circular Bioeconomy in African Food Systems: What is the status quo? Insights from Rwanda, DRC, and Ethiopia.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sekabira,

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Partly

Reviewer #5: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: I Don't Know

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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: The manuscript deals with the study on „Circular Bioeconomy in African Farming Systems: What is the status quo? Insights from Rwanda, DRC, and Ethiopia”. The presented topic is of high professional and practical interest bringing a significant added value to potential target group of readers. Based on the research contribution this study can be justified as innovative.

The title reflects the objective and content of the paper.

The abstract clearly indicates background, result, conclusion and implications of key findings. The keywords are adequate.

Introduction of the manuscript is properly designed and combined with a sufficient critical literature review part. What readers require is, by convinced literature review, to understand the clear thinking/consideration why the proposed approach can reach more convinced results. In addition, authors used updated references. The introduction section describes the main purpose, research methodology and the model of the study Key research questions and the the structure of the study are clearly described.

The methodology applied seems to be satisfactory. The binary nature of variables has been avoided and authors have re-analyzed data with proper ordinal scales (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree).The description of the three variables (aware, knowledgeable, supportive) is clear. The term awareness and knowledge are used in a broader view in the exploratory study. Authors have re-estimated all models with an ordinal regression considering all outcomes’ categories. The authors have used both the ordered logistic regression and the generalized ordered logistic regression to estimate the model. The model fits for the interpreted generalized ordered logit model are also presented in the revised version. Furthermore, authors ran the generalized ordered logit model to correct for the violation of the assumption and the GOL also controls for multi-collinearity. Chi2 values and Pseudo R2 for validation of the model is also presented correctly. Extreme outliers were followed up with the respondents and corrected. For the normal outliers authors have used the box-cox transformations to generate normalized variables. Software STATA/SE 16.0 has been used for the model.

The manuscript reports the results grounded in a statistical sense. Comparing and combining results with previous studies are included as well.

Analysis and discussion part including limitations of the study is well written.

Conclusions reflect all main findings appropriately. In this section the main ideas of the manuscript are presented, the obtained results and their novelty are demonstrated. The value added of this part is presented by the clear analytical methodology used for the analysis by giving the study an original nature.

Reviewer #2: The article is too broad and too long. I am concerned about its relevance. You should have focused more.

The article is too broad and too long. I am concerned about its relevance. You should have focused more.

Reviewer #3: It is an interesting study but the authors lack certain adjustments to make in the text so that the work will be comprehensive to the readers and so that the article will be accepted.

Abstract

I think it is necessary to list in the summary all the statistical instruments used throughout the research and not only talk about logistic regression. It's like it was the only statistical method used.

Introduction

What kind of organic residue are the authors referring to? It's a little confusing in the text. Should these organic residues they are talking about be used only for cassava, banana and coffee crops? This part is not very clear in the introduction and other parts of the text.

I suggest that the authors create after the introduction, a section for the circular economy, the bioeconomy and then for the circular bioeconomy before the work methodology section.

Methodology

In the methodology, the authors have not demonstrated through statistical calculations how they obtained the samples of interviewees in each country. They did not specify whether in each country the sample was probability or not. This may confuse the reader. It must clearly state in the method the categories of people who responded to the questionnaires. Also, tell each country how long it took to collect the data.

Why did you opt for data analysis using descriptive analysis and logistic regression? What is the importance of using this statistical tool?

Are the people who collected the data specialists, students, and professors? It is important to say so in the methodology.

Result

The percentages of the different respondents in each country quoted above in Table 4 do not appear in the latter. The authors need to review this part.

Figure 1 mentioned by the authors does not appear in the text. I suggest a compilation of tables 5 to 10, presenting only the main results.

Analysis and discussions

I suggest that the authors discuss the different categories, CBE practices; awareness, knowledge, and support for CBE practices; consumers’ opinions, explored in their tabular results, adding the different observations for each country.

As an example, authors can consult the article by Mourad (2016).

Mourad, Marie (2016). Recycling, recovering and preventing “food waste”: competing solutions for food systems sustainability in the United States and France. Journal of Cleaner Production, (), S0959652616301536–. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.03.084

Conclusions

Acceptable.

Reviewer #4: The authors present the results of a suite of surveys and interviews on the uptake and acceptance of circular bioeconomy practices in three African countries, conducted with stakeholders along three different value chains. Having myself conducted interviews on this topic, I am fully aware of the sheer amount of time and effort that is needed to go through the process of ethics approval, getting participant consent, preparing and conducting surveys and interviews, and analysing the results. Doing this across multiple countries that sport a rich variety of languages, and with this number of participants, really is an achievement that is to be commended.

While the results of this endevour are absolutely worthwhile of being published, I feel there are a few challenges to be overcome before the manuscript has matured enough to be ready for publication.

1st Challenge – Framing. The work presented in the manuscript is embedded in a larger project with a much wider scope than the part that is presented in the manuscript. However, although the RUNRES project is mentioned in the manuscript, I feel that the manuscript frames the presented 'CBE status quo work' (which I assume was one of many activities in the RUNRES project) as if it was a standalone project. This creates the following problem.

Within the broader scope of a project like RUNRES, I absolutely buy the idea of focusing on selected value chains in selected locations. After all, this follows best practice in sustainability research in that the project integrates researchers and non-researchers in a place-based manner. Zooming in to the part on CBE practices, however, this creates several issues. Most importantly, framing the paper in terms of the status quo in CBE in African food systems, I would expect an analysis of nutrient flows, hot spots for recovery, and key hinders for recovery and reuse. Put differently: what is the recovery potential of different source material, and what is the demand for different production systems? This goes beyond a certain city or a certain value chain. Also, a comparison across countries is questionable if the value chains are different. All in all, the chosen approach makes total sense if seen in the context of the RUNRES project. Yet there are many flaws and gaps if seen as a standalone project to map the status quo in African food systems.

Basically, I see two ways out here. The first being to extend the study by some sort of material flow analysis. This most likely being beyond the scope of the project, I would suggest sticking with the second way out. Namely, to reframe the paper. Provide a background of the larger RUNRES project. Make clear what contribution this paper makes in this broader context. I think the framing here makes a profound difference. With the suggested alternative framing, I believe a reader would be much more forgiving towards flaws and gaps that become an issue with the current framing – these flaws and gaps are of much lesser importance if the work is presented as part of a whole rather than something that stands on its own.

2nd Challenge – Clarity and definition of terminology. Throughout the manuscript, I take issue with the lack of clarity and definition of important concepts and terminology. For instance, in L91 the term "organic waste" seems to imply any type of organic stream that is considered a waste (i.e., crop residues, animal manure, food waste, human manure, etc.). Likewise, in L99 the term "organic compost from recycled waste" also seems to encompass various organic wastes. However, in the survey it seems that human feces are not considered an organic waste since it is presented as a category of its own. Similarly, it seems that "organic compost" seems not to include e.g. composted feces. It seems to me that organic waste rather refers to crop residues, manure and food waste, but not human waste? Also, CBE practices seem not to be fully defined. I think it would be really helpful for the reader if you listed out the source materials you considered, the practices that you considered, and clearly explain what term is used to refer to what. Right now, I feel there is some ambiguity in the use of the terminology, notably "organic waste" and "organic compost", and this risks leading to confusion.

On a more subtle level, I started wondering how much sense it makes to consider CBE practices, e.g. in Table 4 and 7, as one lump category. I would expect that awareness/knowledge/support would vary significantly across different practices (and source of materials). I would assume that CBE practices involving crop residues and animal manure are reasonably well known/supported, whereas the same does not hold true for human waste as source material. If you lump all source material together, these nuances get completely lost. You do represent it separately later in Figure 1, so I am not sure why sometimes it's presented as a lump category "CBE practices" rather than per individual practice. Also, in section 3, there seem to only be regressions for what are reuses as fertilizer. I did not find regressions for reuse of larvae as feed, although this was also addressed in section 4 of the survey. Is this omission on purpose? Perhaps a short note on the rationale could be good to include.

Either way, the manuscript would strongly benefit from being clear which practices and source materials are considered, and which terms are used to refer to what.

3rd Challenge – Methodological clarity and coherence. I found it difficult to follow what exactly was done in terms of survey and interviews etc and which activities supported which research questions and results. For instance, I don't find the survey clearly described in paragraph 2.2 but I find a survey in the supporting information, which is not cross-linked in the text. At the same time, paragraph 2.2 mentions interviews, but there are no details provided in the supporting information. See also comment on L213 below. I think it would be immensely useful to the reader if it was made clearer which activities were undertaken.

4th Challenge – Reader friendliness. I would invite the authors to spend some thought on how to make the paper more visual. A few ideas to start with. Can the different data collection activities be visually linked to different questions – in order to graphically show which activities contributed to answering which questions? In the regression tables (i.e., Table 5 etc.) – how about sending the numbers to the appendix and make a more visual representation in the main manuscript? where you visually indicate which variables are significant and which are not? I think there must be ways to make patterns more salient than with number in tables – It is very difficult to quickly see patterns this way. Also, a graphic that shows the value chain with different points where organic residuals emerge, and with the terminology you use, could be helpful. Perhaps also include the practices that follow after the residuals. E.g., feces can either become fecal compost for agriculture, or it can go through fly larvae and become animal feed.

Overall, once again – there is an immense amount of work behind the research underpinning this manuscript. Yet, the manuscript itself, like a good compost, needs maturation. Notably regarding framing, clarity, coherence, and graphics.

Specific comments:

Introduction & Paragraph 2.1: The introduction seems to be very long. While the theoretical anchoring of the paper in the CE and CBE concepts is valuable, I feel there is a fair bit of redundancy in the text, especially since the CBE concept is taken up once more in paragraph 2.1. I think there is ample scope to consolidate parts of the introduction and paragraph 2.1.

Paragraph 2.3.2: It seems that this paragraph to some extent contains results, notably L286 to 294 to me seem rather like results.

L 49-51: The first paragraph seems to be on a global level. However, the particular statement here about the fate of waste (i.e., uncontrolled dumpsites and rudimentary sanitation facilities) seems to apply primarily to low-income countries and not so much to high and upper-middle-income countries. In fact, the reference Kaza et al. 2018 that you cite seems does provide a nuanced analysis (see e.g. the blue summary box on page 18. I suggest you somehow clarify that the statement here refers in particular to the context of the countries that are the spatial focus of the paper.

L 55: What do you mean by "particular" food system?

L 65: Is utilization restricted to only food waste and agricultural by-products? Wouldn't the scope of utilizing organic waste streams be broader than than and also include nutrients found e.g. in human excreta, wastewater, food processing wastes, etc.?

L73: "Therefore" indicates a logical link between the preceding sentence and the sentence it introduces. I do not fully see this logical link.

L86: What do you mean by "restorative"? Is it the same as "regenerative" or is it conceptually different? I am not sure all readers would have a clear idea of what makes a food system "restorative".

L128: Here, you mention four countries. In the abstract you only mention three of them. In the survey, you also have four countries. Under paragraph 2.2 it's again only three. I see that South Africa was excluded due to data unavailability (of what sort?). Still, I find it a little bit confusing that you sometimes speak of three and sometimes of four countries.

L180: What do you refer to when you say "and their systems"?

L213: Was there an interview guide/protocol that roughly outlined the questions to be asked? When did you administer the survey that is presented in Appendix 1? To the same sample, prior to the interview? Or is it a different sample?

L219: It would be good to mention here that the survey can be found in the Supporting Information. Also, it would be good to provide some information on how you dealt with the issue of multiple languages. In the Supporting Information, there is a Survey in English. But there are dozens of languages spoken across the countries you considered. How did you deal with these many different languages?

L241: "online" what? searches?

L500: "it is the roots which directly ingest CBE fertilizers". As far as I know "ingest" refers to taking something up into the stomach. So, it would apply to humans and animal but not for plants. Or am I misunderstanding something? Do you mean that it is the roots that are ingested directly by humans (rather than say a banana that is not in contact with the CBE fertilizer in the same way than the roots)?

L558: "composting" of what source material? In general? Or agricultural residues (crop residues and manure) in particular?

L625-641: These points are presented under 4.3 Study limitation. However, they seem to be hypotheses / suggestions for further research rather than limitations of the current study.

Figure 1: Hard to follow. What is the 0-100% of what? Presumably number of respondents? Having 5 columns in the legend would be neat. so it would be a matrix 3 (products) x 5 (levels of agreement). Much easier to read. Also, why do the different sources add up to 100%? Is it not possible that one responded agrees for composts, is neutral for urine, and disagrees for fecal matter? So, should it not be 100% per "product"? If the x-axis is percentage of respondents, that is... Either way, some more explanation would be useful.

Responses to reviewers: the way the responses are organised makes it very hard to see what other reviewers commented and how you addressed it. It would be much easier to read if there were, e.g., 2 columns. One with the reviewer comment and one with the responses. I printed on grayscale, so it was almost impossible to see what is a reviewer comment and what is a response.

Reviewer #5: This an interesting topic on assessing the potential of circular bio economies to promote food systems resilience in developing countries. The paper was well done, elucidating the status quo of circular bio economies in selected countries regarding the effects of age, social media and household type on acceptance of cbe. However, there are few comments to be clarified and the paper can be accepted for publication.

Line 154: Out of place

Line 173: Remove comma

Line 186: May you concisely show how you conducted the participatory exercise

Line 188: Remove fullstop

Line 459 – 460 Its not clear which quality aspect of compost are you talking about. You further explain.

Line 500: Please clarify which treatment? Cassava treatment or the fertiliser treatment. Please specify which safety aspect are you exactly referring to (heavy metals or pharmaceuticals?).

Line 501-503 you may also add the importance of practical guidelines on the actual safe use of these products (especially sanitation related products) and how they can increase yields and increase acceptance. Link to the WHO guidelines, USEPA etc.

Line 503-506: To me the major safety aspects come after handling hazardous waste such as human excreta. Please when explaining differentiate on which type of waste or CBE aspect. Composting using food waste and green waste have no major safety implications. The same applies to line 566, social sigma is associated with human excreta.

Line 575: Composting is not economically viable especially when low nutrient feedstocks are used. Compost is an important source of organic to improve soil properties. May you please further explain why was it viable in Asia?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: Reviewer Comment.docx

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-04453_reviewer_WM.pdf

Circular Bioeconomy in African Food Systems: What is the status quo? Insights from Rwanda, DRC, and Ethiopia.

PONE-D-22-04453R1

Dear Dr. Sekabira,

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.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. 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.

Kind regards,

Alison Parker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: All comments have been addressed

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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 #1: Along with the revised manuscript, authors have submitted a detailed revision letter as well. Every comment of the reviewer has been addressed. In the revised manuscript authors have clearly indicated all edits. Congratulations!

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: The paper was excellently done and meets the minimum standards of the PLOS ONE journal. All the comments have been addressed and this is ready for publication.

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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.

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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: No

Reviewer #5: Yes: William Musazura

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