NDSU Agricultural Trade Monitor earns national policy award
The NDSU Agricultural Trade Monitor earned the Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis from the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association. Sandro Steinbach, NDSU Farmers Union Endowed Professor of Agribusiness and Applied Economics and Shawn Arita, NDSU associate professor, accepted the honor at the AAEA Awards & Fellows Recognition Ceremony held in July in Kansas City, Missouri.
The award recognizes the impact of the Monitor, a monthly publication launched in 2025, which provides timely, data-driven analysis of agricultural trade patterns and policy developments amid a volatile global trade environment.
Through flagship products such as the Monitor, the NDSU Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies is a hub for applied economic research on agricultural trade, policy, and risk management in North Dakota and the Upper Midwest, providing insights for producers, agribusinesses, and policymakers.
Steinbach directs CAPTS and the NDSU Agricultural Risk Policy Center, and Arita is the associate director of ARPC.
"The Bruce Gardner Award is especially meaningful because it recognizes policy analysis that is grounded in economic theory and useful to decision-makers," Steinbach said. "The NDSU Agricultural Trade Monitor was built to provide timely, research-driven insight on global agricultural trade at a moment when producers, agribusinesses, and policymakers need clear, data-informed analysis."
"This recognition reflects the work of a broad team at NDSU," Steinbach said. "I am grateful for Shawn Arita's leadership and collaboration and for the contributions of our entire research team." Monitor contributors include NDSU researchers Rwit Chakravorty, Matthew Gammans, Jiyeon Kim, Wuit Yi Lwin, Ming Wang, and Xiting Zhuang.
“This prestigious honor from the AAEA is a testament to the dedication of Sandro, Shawn, and the entire research team at NDSU,” said NDSU interim Vice President for Research and Creative Activity Heidi Grunwald. “This is a celebration of policy analysis grounded in rigorous economic theory. This recognition raises the profile of CAPTS and helps to ensure decision-makers continue to have timely insights during unpredictable trade environments.”
Steinbach’s expertise includes agricultural policy and trade, business management, applied data analysis, and health and environmental economics. His work has appeared in numerous leading field and general-interest journals , including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Nature Communications, and the Review of International Economics, and in February 2026, he was ranked among the top 2% of economists on RePEc based on publications over the past decade.
Arita’s expertise includes agricultural policy, agricultural commodity markets, economic modeling, and impact assessment. With 1,500 Google Scholar citations, his research has been featured in journals including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.
Only one AAEA Bruce Gardner Award is presented annually, and it recognizes outstanding impact on agricultural, food, environmental, development, and related policies, grounded in sound economic theory. The award is given for work in the tradition of Bruce Gardner, a University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics and former AAEA President, who helped shape U.S. farm policy for more than four decades.
In addition to the Gardner award, Arita, Steinbach, and NDSU research assistant professor and CAPTS senior economist Carlos Zurita received the AAEA 2026 Choices Outstanding Article Award for their contribution to the special collection, "Economic Consequences of the Tariff War."
Established in 1910, the AAEA has more than 2,500 members in 60 countries who work in academic, government, industry, and not-for-profit organizations and engage in research, teaching, and outreach across agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. www.aaea.org
Archives of the Monitor are available at www.capts-ndsu.com/ndsu-ag-trade-monitor.