Impacts of Climatic Variability on Agricultural Total Factor Productivity Growth in the Southern United States
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
All coments are in the attached manuscript.
I also suggest to take a look at the following articles, I consider you can use them to discuss some of your results.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061516 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5373336/
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your comments. We have accepted all suggested edits. In addition, we have also added the suggested references in our discussion.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a concise analysis of the factors influencing regional agricultural productivity based on standardized data from three governmental agencies. As a regional analyses much of the geographic variability is by necessity ignored meaning only the most general patterns of drivers of productivity can be discussed. They authors mention the three divisions that make up the study area but do not attempt to explore models for those divisions. Even within the divisions they acknowledge considerable variability. Aside from one grammatical error (line 309) is likely missing a “by” that would make the sentence make more sense, I would suggest the final conclusion in the abstract be subtly changed. Unless there is a connection drawn between funding for extension programs and increase in technical efficiency and adoption of climate smart agricultural practices, then the conclusion should be that technical efficiency and adoption of climate smart agricultural practices are needed. If there is known linkage that should be discussed specifically in the article prior to that conclusion being made.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
We have changed the concluding sentence in the abstract as suggested. The new sentence reads as follows: "Findings indicate that climatic variability is having a negative impact on agricultural productivity in the Southern US, similar in magnitude to the positive impact of irrigation."
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors presents a pivotal study of climate impacts on agricultural production and total factor productivity. Article is well written and organized. Conclusions are supported by results. I have only a few minor comments that authors should take into consideration:
1/ "The human population is expected to grow to almost 10 billion by 2050".
I believe that this is too strong statement. The latest demographic studies provide much lower estimates, see e.g., book Empty Planet by Bricker and Ibbitson.
2/ Reformat Eq. (7)
3/ Bold notation in equations is used to describe vectors (such as v ) and matrices (such as M), not variables or constants.
4/ l. 198: write: “calculated by using”, also l.218 and elsewhere
5/ reformat Tabs 2 and 3, sigmas are on the left corner
6/ add line between l.244 and l.245 (and elsewhere)
7/ l.246, Explain why you used the Hausman test
8/ Make Fig. 2 more readable, do not use bold letters
9/ l.347: “Specifically, climatic variability has a negative effect on 10 states out of the 16,” It would be interesting to provide these estimates in the total land area too.
10/ l. 390-391: “Our results also show that, on average, precipitation has a positive and significant effect on production, and temperature has a negative but non-significant impact” Increasing temperature and precipitation or decreasing? Clarify.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful comments. Our reply to each comment is found below:
1) We have adjusted the language to remove the "10 billion" and now state that "population is expected to grow significantly by 2050."
2) The equation was reformatted as suggested.
3) Thanks for pointing this out, we have removed the bold notation.
4) Re-worded as suggested
5) Tables have been reformatted and added to body of document.
6) We have adjusted the spacing as required by the journal.
7) The purpose of the Hausman test is to "compare all the models using statistical tests to select the preferred one". This is specified under section 3.1.
8) Thank you for this suggestion, we have re-done the figure and removed most of the in-figure text to make the figure easier to read.
9) This really is an interesting suggestion. However, it would be challenging to add the cultivated area to Table 4, as the area under cultivation fluctuates year-after-year for each state in the analysis. Thus, we will consider conducting an analysis of the dynamics of cultivated land for a future paper.
10) We have clarified the statement as suggested.
