Marco Palma, Ph.D., is associate director for Responsive Agriculture at the Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, IHA. Responsive Agriculture is the design and management of food systems that dynamically adapt, align and sustain agricultural production with human nutritional needs, environmental conditions and economic prosperity for farmers and ranchers, to improve health. Under Palma’s leadership, Responsive Agriculture fosters science-based innovation to ensure resilient agricultural and food systems that provide nutritious and accessible food to promote health.
Palma is a leading agricultural economist and brings over 20 years of expertise cultivated over his career at Texas A&M University in research and teaching. He has served in professional leadership positions including president of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and the editorial board of leading journals in the field, including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Economic Journal and Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Palma is a Texas A&M Regents Professor, Presidential Impact Fellow, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow, and holder of the Economics of Responsive Agriculture Endowed Chair. Additionally, he was a participant in the first cohort of LEAD AgriLife.
Since 2017, Palma has served as co-founding director of the Human Behavior Laboratory at Texas A&M University. The lab is one of the largest facilities in the world dedicated to studying the neurophysiology of human choices with a focus on food and agriculture to better understand, predict and change behavior that improves people’s health and well-being. During his time as director, Palma has led the transdisciplinary faculty and integrated state-of-the-art technology to measure neurophysiological responses of human decision-making.
Palma’s research investigates the driving forces influencing human decisions. His research has been particularly significant for evaluating existing and emerging technologies and the impact of government, farm and food policy on the production and consumption of food and agricultural products.
Palma first came to Texas A&M AgriLife as an assistant professor and AgriLife Extension Service economist in 2006, specializing in horticulture marketing and economics. He is passionate about helping farmers and consumers create healthy, sustainable relationships and has secured more than $117 million in funding as PI or Co-PI to conduct applied research and outreach efforts, with 130 peer-reviewed publications in many top agricultural and applied economics journals. He has served on the committee of more than 100 graduate students, many of whom have placed in prestigious academic institutions, industry and government. Palma holds a doctorate in food and resource economics from the University of Florida.