Estimating the potato farming efficiency: A comparative study between stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis

Shamima Sultana; Md. Moyazzem Hossain; Md. Nurul Haque

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0284391

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 12, 2023
7 Mar 2023 Decision Letter - Thanh Ngo, Editor PONE-D-23-04113Estimating the Potato Farming Efficiency: A Comparative Study between Stochastic Frontier Analysis and Data Envelopment AnalysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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. Particularly, both reviewers recommend reconsideration of your manuscript following minor revision. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 21 2023 11:59PM. 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. 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Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 6. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. 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 ******** 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: Yes 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: No ****** 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: Dear Sir/Madam, My comments are in the file. 1-The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the most productive crop and the third-largest source of food on earth [1]. (The following information is also available in the literature. Potato is in the fifth place after sugarcane, corn, rice and wheat in the list of the most produced plant products in the world. Please refer to the literature: FAOSTAT (2022). World Production Quantities of Crops. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC. and Kadakoğlu, B., Karlı, B. (2021). Economic Analysis of Potato Production in Afyonkarahisar Province, KSU J. Agric Nat 25 (3): 581-588. https://doi.org/10.18016/ksutarimdoga.vi.947387) 2-To the best of our knowledge, no research has been done yet on potato farming efficiency using both SFA and DEA. (On the contrary, a study was conducted in Türkiye on the technical efficiency of potato cultivation using both SFA and DEA. According to the results of the research, SFA 69.0, DEA-CRS 76.4, DEA-VRS 84.6 were found. Please refer to the literature: Kadakoğlu, B. (2021). Analysis of Technical and Economic Efficiency of Potato Production in Afyonkarahisar Province, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, The Institute of Graduate Education Department of Agricultural Economics, M.Sc. Thesis. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20260.96641) 3-This study applies a self-dual Cobb-Douglas SFA Method. (What is your reason for choosing this method? As you know, there are statistics for Cobb-Douglas or Translog method in SFA and as a result, the method is selected. Please apply the statistics and choose your method accordingly.) 4-Results of Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model. (It is recommended to compare your study result with another study on the same method and the same product. Please refer to the literature: Kadakoğlu, B., Karlı, B. (2022). Technical Efficiency of Potato Production in Turkey by Stochastic Frontier Analysis,Custos e Agronegocio, 18(2), 163-178. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364303318_Technical_Efficiency_of_Potato_Production_in_Turkey_by_Stochastic_Frontier_Analysis) 5-Further research would be better if collected data and information were based on a larger sample size. (Why didn't you increase the sample size of the research more and make it more comprehensive? Include the constraints of your research.) 6-References (It is recommended to include the above-mentioned references to increase the scope of the research.) Reviewer #2: Estimating the potato farming efficiency: A comparative study between SFA and DEA Journal: PLOS ONE Summary This study first assesses whether SFA is a better method than DEA in estimating potato farming efficiency. Second, this study identifies the determinants of potato farming efficiency. I only have a few minor comments. Abstract Please rewrite the abstract. The current abstract is quite lengthy and repetitive. Data Please provide descriptive statistics of variables used in this study. Please provide references for the inputs and outputs used. Results For the analysis of efficiency determinants, please provide references to each finding. References Please keep the references consistent. Other comments English writing is relatively poor, for example, “where Tk. Is the currency of Bangladesh”. Please approach professional editing services before resubmitting your manuscript. Again, the author(s) could benefit from a professional proofreader. ****** 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: Yes: Mevlüt Gül Reviewer #2: 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-04113 (1).pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284391.r001
Revision 1
11 Mar 2023 Author Response Dear Editor, PloS ONE We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers and the Editors for their valuable comments. We have considered all the comments made by the reviewers and thoroughly revised and formatted the manuscript accordingly. A detailed response to each of the comments is provided below. Author responses to the Academic Editor comments: Thank you very much for carefully checking the manuscript and providing insightful comments. All required files are uploaded to the journal system. Revised texts are in red color. Author responses to the Journal Requirements: 1. Thanks. We revised the manuscript following the PLOS ONE style. Revised texts are in red color. 2. Thanks. We add the consent form as an “Other” file. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 4 3. Thanks. We add the following. All relevant data are within the manuscript and data are available in a Supporting Information file (S3 Data). Revised texts are in red color. Page: 18 4. Thanks. We moved it to the Methods section. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 4 5. Thanks. We add captions of the Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript. Revised texts are in red color. Page:17-18 6. Thanks. We checked the reference list and ensure that it is complete and correct. We use Mendeley for citation. Authors Response to the Reviewer 1 comments: 1. Thank you very much for carefully checking the manuscript and providing insightful comments. We revise it and add the suggested citations. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 2 (Ref. 2, 3) 2. Thanks for highlighting this point. We have revised the manuscript as per your guidelines. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 3 (Ref. 22) 3. We appreciate your comments. We revise the manuscript. The Cobb-Douglas type production function has been used extensively by researchers worldwide and the existing literature motivates us to use the self-dual Cobb-Douglas SFA Method in this study. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 5 4. Thanks. We have revised the Result section according to your guidelines and feedback. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 7-11 5. Thank you very much. We add a limitation section as per your comments. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 16 6. We are thankful to you for carefully checking the manuscript. We revised the citation and reference list. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 18-22 Authors Response to the Reviewer 2 comments: Thanks. We appreciate your comments. We have revised this section as per your feedback. Revised texts are in red color. Thank you very much. This section is revised as per the comment. We revise the abstract of this manuscript. We add the descriptive statistics of variables used in this study. We add the references for efficiency determinants. We use Mendeley for citation and follow the PLOS ONE style. We check and correct all typos and grammatical mistakes. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 1-2, 4, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13 Finally, the revised manuscript has been produced following the valuable comments and suggestions of the reviewers. Once again, we would like to thank the reviewers for their sincere dedication, professional insights, and earnest cooperation in reviewing the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284391.r002
27 Mar 2023 Decision Letter - Thanh Ngo, Editor PONE-D-23-04113R1Estimating the Potato Farming Efficiency: A Comparative Study between Stochastic Frontier Analysis and Data Envelopment AnalysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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. Besides the comments from Reviewer 2, I suggest the authors to review some missing literature on agriculture efficiency, although not on potato farms, around the references 9 and 10 on page 3 as follows. Fuwa, N., Edmonds, C., & Banik, P. (2007). Are small-scale rice farmers in eastern India really inefficient? Examining the effects of microtopography on technical efficiency estimates. Agricultural Economics, 36(3), 335-346. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.2007.00211.x Asadullah, M. N., & Rahman, S. (2009). Farm productivity and efficiency in rural Bangladesh: the role of education revisited. Applied Economics, 41(1), 17-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840601019125 Madau, F. A. (2011). Parametric Estimation of Technical and Scale Efficiencies in the Italian Citrus Farming. Agricultural Economics Review, 12, 91-111. Madau, F. A., Furesi, R., & Pulina, P. (2017). Technical efficiency and total factor productivity changes in European dairy farm sectors. Agricultural and Food Economics, 5(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-017-0085-x Nguyen, H.-D., Ngo, T., Le, T., Ho, H., & Nguyen, H. T. (2019). The Role of Knowledge in Sustainable Agriculture: Evidence from Rice Farms’ Technical Efficiency in Hanoi, Vietnam. Sustainability, 11(9), 2472. Rada, N. E., & Fuglie, K. O. (2019). New perspectives on farm size and productivity. Food Policy, 84, 147-152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.03.015 Please submit your revised manuscript by May 11 2023 11:59PM. 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, Thanh Ngo, Ph.D. 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 #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Thank you for giving me a chance to read your work again. Although the authors have addressed all my comments, I still see several grammar errors there. For example, pp.10 " The cost on seed is positively and significantly influenced the potato production and this findings is supported by a previous study [16]." or "Moreover, without good quality fertilizer, production would be hampered which is a prerequisite for boosting production which is consistent with other study findings [16]." In the abstract, "Therefore, the authors aimed to evaluate farm-level efficiency and inefficiency of potato farming in Bangladesh." I think that a word "inefficiency" is unnecessary. Very best, Tu ****** 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 #1: Yes: Mevlüt Gül Reviewer #2: 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.0284391.r003
Revision 2
27 Mar 2023 Author Response Dear Editor, We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers and the Editors for their valuable comments. We have considered all the comments made by the reviewers and thoroughly revised and formatted the manuscript accordingly. A detailed response to each of the comments is provided below. Author's Response to the Academic Editor comments: Thank you very much for completing the second round review process and providing feedback. We believe that the suggestion is helpful to improve the quality of the manuscript. We appreciate your suggestion. We revised the manuscript in light of the suggested papers and cite them. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 3, Ref. [11-16]. Thank you very much for carefully checking the manuscript and providing insightful comments. All required files are uploaded to the journal system. Author's Response the Journal Requirements: Thanks. We checked the reference list and ensure that it is complete and correct. We use Mendeley for citation. Author's Response the Reviewer 2 comments: Thanks. We appreciate your comments. We have revised the manuscript as per your feedback. Revised texts are in red color. Page: 1, 10 Finally, the revised manuscript has been produced following the valuable comments and suggestions of the reviewers. Once again, we would like to thank the reviewers for their sincere dedication, professional insights, and earnest cooperation in reviewing the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284391.r004
29 Mar 2023 Decision Letter - Thanh Ngo, Editor Estimating the Potato Farming Efficiency: A Comparative Study between Stochastic Frontier Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis PONE-D-23-04113R2 Dear Dr. Hossain, 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. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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, Thanh Ngo, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284391.r005
Formally Accepted
4 Apr 2023 Acceptance Letter - Thanh Ngo, Editor PONE-D-23-04113R2 Estimating the Potato Farming Efficiency: A Comparative Study between Stochastic Frontier Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis Dear Dr. Hossain: 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 Dr. Thanh Ngo Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284391.r006

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