Bibliometric Analysis of Environmental Economics Research in Agriculture in Relation to the UN SDGs

Agriculture is a cause as well as a consequence of environmental change, which implies that an economic analysis should be conducted that takes into account ecosystem services, externalities, and sustainable resource use. This bibliometric analysis seeks to explore the development of environmental economics research in agricultural studies in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) between 2015 and 2024. The analysis reveals the global knowledge structure, the most significant contributors, and the thematic connection of environmental economics and agricultural sustainability based on 939 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from the Scopus database and analyzed using the bibliometrix package in R and VOS viewer. The results indicate that the number of publications has increased fourfold between 56 in 2015 and 195 in 2024, with an annual growth of 14.87 %. The study includes 3,763 authors and 258 journals, with 38.76 per cent international co-authorship and a mean of 10.4 authors per article, demonstrating a growing interdisciplinarity and international collaboration. The leading journals are Science of the Total Environment, Sustainability, and the Journal of Environmental Management. The dominant key themes include sustainable agriculture, climate change, and ecosystem valuation, with a novel focus on green finance, bioeconomy, and data-driven sustainability. China, the United States and Europe lead in research production with growing links to Africa and Asia. The study presents emerging research areas that can position agri-environmental economics with climate policy, the circular economy, and sustainability transitions in order to promote informed policy-making on ecological and agricultural resilience.