Keynote Matin Qaim: Sustainable Food Systems and What it Takes to Get There: The lecture will analyze the (un)sustainability of food systems in terms of their human health and environmental health implications and what to expect against the backdrop of ongoing global crises. It will also analyze what types of policies, technological innovations, and behavioral changes are needed in different parts of the world to make local and global food systems more sustainable. The role of agricultural economics research will also be discussed.

Keynote David Wuepper: Progress and Challenges in Land Economics: Land economics brings together land science and economics. The field has gained a lot of attention in recent years, especially from the discourse around nature based climate solutions, how to halt the loss of biodiversity, and increasing worries about soil degradation. There have been important methodological advances – particularly in the realm of measurement and causal identification. Conceptually, researchers have gotten more and more interested in heterogeneous treatment effects, conditioning factors, and non-linearities. Behavioral economics continues to make important contributions, adding realism to common assumptions about human behavior. The identification of the effect of slow-changing, long-term trends (such as soil degradation processes) still remains a challenge. Another challenge pertains to accessibility, technical capabilities, and selection biases. There is also still too often a disconnect between academic research and policy making. Overall, however, things are moving in the right direction.

Alisher Mirzabaev and David Wuepper: Economics of Ecosystem Restoration

Abstract: Restoration of degraded ecosystems is essential for having a stable climate, reducing weather extremes and disease burden, producing enough food to feed growing populations, and generally keeping the world livable. However, we are currently rapidly degrading ecosystems worldwide, thus destroying the very basis of life. There is a major gap between what investments are needed to restore degraded ecosystems and prevent further degradation and what is actually being invested. In addition, most governments are still learning how to design and implement ecosystem restoration policies that are effective and efficient. Ecosystem restoration should be among our main scientific endeavors. This review fills a critical gap in the existing literature by providing a theory-informed understanding of the findings emerging from this highly policy-relevant strand of resource economics. The article also suggests key areas for future research.                  https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-resource-101422-085414