The journal Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy just published a special issue in which agricultural and applied economists provide their thoughts on how we might help tackle some of society’s most difficult problems and challenges. I co-authored one of the articles with Jill McCluskey. Here's the abstract:
“The food consumer plays an increasingly prominent role in shaping the food and farming system. A better understanding of how public policies affect consumer choice and how those choices impact health, environment, and food security outcomes is needed. This paper addresses several key challenges we see for the future, including issues related to dietary-related diseases and the efficacy of policies designed to improve dietary choices, trust in the food system, acceptance of new food and farm technologies, environmental impacts of food consumption, preferences for increased food quality, and issues related to food safety. We also identify some research challenges and barriers that exist when studying these issues, including data quality and availability, uncertainty in the underlying biological and physical sciences, and the challenges to welfare economics that are presented by behavioral economics. We also identify the unique role that economists can play in helping address these key societal challenges.”
Other contributions in the special issue include:
- "Agricultural and Applied Economics Priorities for Solving Societal Challenges" by Jill McCluskey, Gene Nelson, and Caron Gala
- "Economics of Sustainable Development and the Bioeconomy" by David Zilberman, Ben Gordon, Gal Hochman, Justus Wesseler
- "Sustaining our Natural Resources in the Face of Increasing Societal Demands on Agriculture: Directions for Future Research" by Madhu Khanna, Scott Swinton, Kent D Messer
- "Climate Change as an Agricultural Economics Research Topic" by Bruce McCarl and Tom Hertel
- "Big Data in Agriculture: A Challenge for the Future" by Keith Coble, Ashok Mishra, Shannon Ferrell, and Terry Griffin
- "The Economic Status of Rural America in the President Trump Era and beyond" by Stephan Goetz, Mark Partridge, Heather Stephens
- "Food Insecurity Research in the United States: Where We Have Been and Where We Need to Go" by Craig Gundersen and James Ziliak
- "The Farm Economy: Future Research and Education Priorities" by Allen Featherstone
- "A Research Agenda for International Agricultural Trade" by Will Martin
- "Energy Economics" by Wally Tyner, and Nisal Herath