Sandra Batie came to Michigan State in 1993 to become the first holder of the Elton R. Smith Professorship in Food and Agricultural Policy, and she conducts research on food, agricultural, and environmental policy issues at the state, federal and international level. Prior to joining MSU, she was on the faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University since 1973. She took one sabbatical leave with the Conservation Foundation, where she studied and wrote about federal conservation policy and a second with the National Governors' Association, where she specialized in state policy with respect to rural development and groundwater management. She has actively served on commissions and boards that are related to her expertise, including the National Academy of Science, Board of Agriculture; the Academy's Center for Central Europe and Eurasia Affairs; and the Office of Technology Assessment. She was a trustee of both Winrock International and the International Rice Research Institute, and she is currently chair of the Board of Winrock. She is past president of the American Agricultural Economics Association as well as the Southern Agricultural Economics Association. She is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association. She teaches a graduate course in environmental economics and conducts extension programming on food, agricultural and environmental policies. She is a member of the multidisciplinary resource economics faculty.

Professional Interests

• Implementation of agro-environmental water quality standards
• Corporate environmental management strategies in the agricultural sector
• Examining the influence of agricultural contractual arrangements on producer's financial, and environmental performance

Selected Publications

Reganold, J.P. D. Jackson-Smith, S.S. Batie, R. R. Harwood, J.L Kornegay, D. Bucks, C.B. Flora, J.C. Hanson, W. A. Jury, D. Meyer. A Schumacher, Jr. R. Schmsdorf,  C. Shennan, L.A. Thrupp, and P. Willis.  2011. Transforming U. S. Agriculture.  Science 332:670-671.

Batie,Sandra S. 2010,  Taking Conservation Seriously as a Wicked Problem: In Managing Agricultural Landscapes for Environmental Quality II: Achieving More Effective Conservation.  Eds. Peter Nowak and Max Schnepf 143-145 Ankey Iowa, Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Kornegay, J.L., R.R. Harwood and S.S. Batie et al. 2010. Towards Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Academy of Science, National Research Council.  570pp.

Batie, Sandra S. 2009. Green Payments and the U.S. Farm Bill:Information and Policy Challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7 (7): 380-388.

Batie, Sandra S., Mercuro, N. (Eds.). 2008. Alternative Institutional Structures: Evolution and Impact. London: Routledge Press.

Batie, Sandra S. 2008. Wicked Problems and Applied Economics. American Journal of Agriculture Economics. 90 (5): 176-1191.

Srivastava, Lorie and Sandra S. Batie (2001). The Effect of Uncertainty on Compliance with Environmental Performance Standards: Total Maximum Daily Loads in Michigan. Final Report to the Great Lakes Protection Fund. Lansing, Michigan. (July 15).

Funded Research Projects

• Great Lakes Protection Fund. Effectiveness of Nonpoint Pollution Prevention