Shimokawa’s laboratory explores various food- and agriculture-related issues through the lens of economics, aiming to achieve more sustainable food and agriculture systems. Although food is one of the most essential issues for our lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult to notice and understand how food is connected to a wide range of critical social problems in reality. This difficulty arises due to recent urbanization and globalization, which have made food systems more complex. To unravel this complexity, the problems can be broken down into three aspects: the human-caused aspect, the technology-caused aspect, and the society-caused aspect. My lab aims to develop comprehensive strategies that address these three aspects collectively, referred to as the "human + technology + society" strategy, through collaboration with relevant companies and researchers across different disciplines.

In particular, my lab focuses on the human-caused and society-caused aspects of food and agriculture problems, including related issues of poverty, health, energy, and the environment. This emphasis is because, regardless of how effective a technology may be, its social impact ultimately depends on the choices and utilization patterns of people and society. Specifically, my lab aims to develop more effective strategies that incorporate insights from behavioral economics and human cognitive biases. Furthermore, recognizing that the challenges facing Japan's agriculture cannot be addressed solely within the agricultural sector, my lab also investigates the social mechanisms by which the entire society, including non-agricultural sectors and consumers, supports sustainable agriculture.