Our research broadly aims to assess how and why tropical agriculture, including environmental governance initiatives applied to agricultural commodity supply chains, alters ecosystem function, climate, and human livelihoods. The goal of these investigations is to enhance sustainable and equitable management of tropical agriculture by incorporating information about the ecology of food production systems with understanding of surrounding socio-economic and political processes. We use diverse data sources and tools including satellite observations, government statistics, field data collected using natural and social science methods, and earth system models. Our work tends to be solutions-oriented, and we actively engage governments and organizations to identify research questions that are directly relevant to policy.

Specifically, we aim to address four questions:

• What are the drivers of land system changes in tropical agricultural landscapes?
• What are the trade-offs between tropical agriculture and ecosystem function?
• What drives adoption and implementation of supply chain environmental governance initiatives?
• What are the effects of agricultural supply chain environmental governance initiatives?