Organic Farming Support Policy in a Sustainable Development Context: A Polish Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Interesting and relevant topic; however, the manuscript faces several deficiencies.

1) The manuscript is very descriptive. Please try to highlight and focus on the most important parts.

2) The structure of the paper is not logical. Many parts of the Method and Materials rather belong to the Background part (organic sector of Poland)

3) The trends indicated in Method and Materials should be more explained.

4) Please pay more attention to the structure of the Polish organic sector when explaining the tendencies (e.g., share of permanent grasslands, pastures in the organic regime).

4) The title refers to a case study; however, the manuscript is rather a descriptive analysis of the Polish organic sector. It might be worthy to consider including real case studies dealing with the Polish organic sector. (e.g.: DOI: 10.3390/su11174800)

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic is highly relevant in the context of the current focus on the development of the CAP strategic plans by EU member states, and the EU's target for 25% of agricultural land area to be organic by 2030. The identification of two different phases on organic support in Poland, with impacts on participation rates, is helpful. However, the paper is not supported by a formal methodology to assess this (for example interviews with farmers and/or policy-makers), and is based mainly on a discursive approach to compare the two phases. Given this, there is a need to be more critical about some of the judgements made (e.g. about subsidy farming) and to look for alternative explanations for the differences identified. Despite this the paper looks to be well-informed, with a good data set on organic policy support, and uses a good selection of relevant references.

Some specific concerns are outlined below:

• The description and assessment of organic farming in lines 70-90 tends to be rather non-discriminatory. Organic farming may aim to be sustainable and self-sufficient, but this doesn't mean that it is achieved in practice, or may be achieved to differing extents on individual farms. Most rather all agricultural chemicals are avoided, resulting in less but not no pollution - organic practices still have some negative environmental impacts. This section lacks supporting evidence for the claims made and it is important to moderate these claims and adopt a more critical approach.

•  

  Poland is not the only country to have experienced declines. The German decline in  2007-2010 (line 157) could be linked to financial crash of 2008, which impacted on organic farming sectors in other countries at the time. This highlights the need to be aware of exogenous trigger events that might also explain changes in development paths.

•  

  The UK experience was in some respects worse than Poland (Line 159) since the financial crash of 2008. Bulgaria has also experienced a decline from 2015, albeit less intense. Might there be an opportunity for cross-country comparisons to be made?

   

• Lines 443 onwards: Organic policy was implemented as an agri-environment policy in the two previous periods reviewed. Were there no environmental benefits to be expected as a result of supporting organic land management even if the products were not marketed as organic?  Why should there be a requirement to market products as organic if environmental outcomes were the primary objective?

   

• Lines 455 onwards – could an alternative perception be that the farmers needed to be confident of financial viability before committing, rather than subsidy consumption. The implication is that the payments did more than compensate for income foregone through being organic – what evidence is there of this. This issue is not discussed. How can you conclude that the farmers were only motivated by subsidy harvesting if you did not interview them to ascertain reasons for participation or otherwise? What is know about the approach adopted by the authorities to calculating income foregone and the resulting payment rates? If they were just compensating income foregone by being organic there would be no (or only limited) scope for subsidy harvesting.

  Lines 508 onwards – point about policy instability being factor in undermining willingness to stay organic is well made and has been seen elsewhere.

  Line 521 onwards – this would be associated with the implementation of the new RDP and the requirement for organic farmers to be active farmers, unlike recipient of agri-environmental support before and after this date. There is no discussion of the changes in the EU regulatory framework that took place in 2014, and that might have contributed to the situation. 

• If the language is intended to be UK (or EU) English, then the word Programme should be spelt correctly - Program is only used for computer software.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article would be more significant if it would disclose pricing for growing organic products.  Then subsidies from the state would be more reasonable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

(1) As the objective of this study is aimed at assessing the extent, scope and importance of financial support for Polish organic farming, I suggest authors to add literature reviews on the issue of the influence of financial support on farmers’ farming behavior or policy adoption behavior.

 

(2) In the Method and Materials section, the authors need to provide a description regarding the method used in data analysis.

 

(3) As the objective of this study is aimed at assessing the extent, scope and importance of financial support for Polish organic farming, I wonder why the data were not quantitatively analyzed further, such as with regression analysis, to evaluate the effect of the influence of financial support for organic farming, as the authors already have the data of option name, payment rates, amount of support, and area of organic farming, as listed on Table 1. 2. 3. 4, etc.?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been substantially improved, however, the overall merit is still under average.

Author Response

Thank you so much for all your comments. I hope the article meets your expectations.

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no further comments.

Author Response

Thank you so much for all your comments. I hope the article meets your expectations.

Reviewer 4 Report

Authors have corrected what I comment

Author Response

Thank you so much for all your comments. I hope the article meets your expectations.