The Influence of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) on the Productivity and Well-Being of Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO)-Certified Independent Smallholders in Malaysia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper presents a topic actualized and relevant.

But please be careful and correct:

1) Abstract : Please clearly follow the rules of Agriculture. Do not begin the abstract with this. "Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) is a Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certificate 12 component. Among the importance of Independent Smallholders (ISH) implementing GAP a..."

Please cleary identify the main goal of the paper.

2) Page 6 ... ", the study’s reliability level can be determined by looking at Cronbach’s 248 Alpha (α) value between 0.00 to 1.00. If the value is close to 1.00, then the study’s reliability 249 level is high, good and effective. On the other hand, if the value is close to 0.00, then the 250 study’s reliability is low...."

Please eliminate. Any research of the world knew that. This is not relevant.

3) The same in Data Analysis. You don't need to explain "like academic lectures" what is factorial analysis. Again every research across the world in the area know that. You just need to explain this multivariate technique applied to your paper.

About the results of PCA : Congrats! well done . The results obtained are very adjusted and interesting.

4) About PLS-SEM please note this is an limited method. I would be glad to see here econometric models adjusted and explain in detail.

Please on the next papers don't use structural equations. This is a very weak and limited method and don't bring any innovation.

5) The references are very complete and quite actualized, but please insert more relevant references (about 30%) from 2023 or 2022 mainly from the journals MDPI like Sustainability, or other SCOPUS top 5 or Q1 references from 2023 or 2022.

Finally, I wish the authors all the best! with the revision, publication and future citations

 

Author Response

Please  see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

From the title you may need to add (GAPs) in parenthesis and write MSPO in full and put the acronym in parenthesis.

In the abstract, justify the choice of purposive sampling procedure for the study. Your well-being index should be in decimal points not in %. Kindly change it (it should be between 0-1). You may reduce it to 2decimal place.

How did the study find that GAP influenced productivity....? Kindly reconstruct this statement for better understanding.

Can you use "Smallholder farmers" instead of just "smallholders"  

In the keywords: write these in full: GAP, ISH, MSPO.

From introduction, let referencing numbering start from [1] and not [14]. Kindly correct it throughout the main text.

There is a need for the authors to present a more robust background information including the inclusion of the global oil palm production statistics (2020-2022). What is the rank of Malaysia in oil global palm production in recent time (2022)?

In the methods, you may still need to justify the choice of purposive sampling procedures for this study. From line 212-213, you may need to include the sample size formula or equation and show how you will arrive at 380-400 sample size from 129,304 population.

Why did you use SEM for this study? Present the models implicitly.

The concise methods/procedures for constructing well-being index are conspicuously missing here. Or the methodology is quite unclear.

Show the equation for constructing it and references added. 

In line 423 (table 11), have you stated the hypothesis in the latter part of the introduction? You're expected to have done that before presenting the results.

Note that the discussion section is conspicuously missing in this manuscript. Kindly add the discussion section.

However, before conclusion section, kindly present a sub-section heading "limitations of the study" and "areas for further studies"

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

Good.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Accept for publication.