| Chapter : | Introduction: Putting Ecological Economics into Sustainable Agricultural Practices |
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of even a generally identifiable transdisciplinary analytical framework, policy makers and resource managers have to continue to employ conventional methods—and thus, they fail to put the sustainability theory into practice.
Contention 1: Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary analytical framework that can be employed to address the issue of sustainability
Ecological economics is a heterodox approach to complex problems (e.g., sustainability) and is substantially different from the accepted wisdom of the established orthodox approaches (e.g., neoclassical economics). This alternative approach offers different ways of looking at complex systems (e.g., ecological agriculture) as well as creative methods for dealing with problems and generating solutions.
Problem 2: There is a failure to effectively put the theory of sustainability into agricultural practice
Whereas a transdisciplinary ecological economics framework provides a holistic articulation of sustainability, it is a necessary rather than a sufficient condition for the implementation of the theory. Obviously, there is a gap between scientific research and policy implementation. Unfortunately, little guidance has been available within the ecological economics community as to how effective policy making should proceed and how the information gap among scientific researchers, policy makers, and farmers can be narrowed or bridged.
Contention 2: Effective policy making to bridge the gap between the theory and the practice of agricultural sustainability should be promoted
One priority is to identify the essential role of ecological economics as a policy science and advocate its development as an appropriate means of contributing to effective communication between science and policy. This would constitute a major contribution to the field of ecological economics for both the academic research of agricultural sustainability and