Bridging the Divide Between Agricultural Economics and the Sustainability Sciences

ABSTRACT This article is based on several decades of experience engaging in interdisciplinary research and teaching involving agronomists, climate scientists, ecologists, hydrologists and geographers, focused on ensuring the long run sustainability of local and global food systems. Through a series of examples of this research, the paper will underscore several key points. The first is that keeping the economics as simple as possible leaves greater room for interdisciplinary collaboration. The more complex the economic models, the higher the barrier to effective collaboration. Basic economic messages on the role of markets in mediating the impacts of policies, along with producer and consumer responses to changing incentives are invaluable to sustainability analyses and can lend important new insights. This doesn’t mean that the ensuing economic analysis is not sophisticated. Indeed, as will be demonstrated, sophisticated analysis is critically important. But this analysis is at the ‘extensive margin’ of economic science—applying established methods to new application domains. A second point is that economists must work at the same spatial resolution as our science collaborators. For food, land and water sustainability challenges, this is typically the grid cell—geospatial units identified by latitude and longitude coordinates. Economists have been slow on the uptake of the geospatial data revolution. For me personally, this has meant moving, over the last two decades, from national scale general equilibrium modelling to gridded partial equilibrium modelling. Ultimately, these two frameworks can be combined, as I will demonstrate in this paper. Many sustainability analyses must start at the granular level where one can leverage the full expertise of the biophysical scientists. This may take many economists out of their comfort zone. However, our tools can be adapted and brought to bear at fine scale. In this context, the paper highlights the value of the Global‐to‐Local‐to‐Global approach to sustainability analysis. The third key point made in this paper is that economics offers a great organising framework for interdisciplinary projects. Too often we let the biophysical scientists frame the discussion prior to our involvement. This leads to frustration on the part of economists who are relegated to a secondary role in the project. However, if we lead the writing of the proposal and frame the overall discussion in economic terms, this gives rise to a very different dynamic which can facilitate coherent and meaningful economic analyses. Further, when economics is not used in the sustainability sciences, policy prescriptions are often limited at best, and misleading at worst. Finally, I have some suggestions for the teaching of interdisciplinary skills at the graduate level. Here, a well‐constructed course can benefit both the students as well as the instructor, fostering fruitful collaborations on grant applications, as well as generating new ideas for research in the sustainability sciences.