AFES in a flash
Why study Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies?
- Because you want to contribute to thinking about how to feed the world and achieve economic development while conserving ecosystems and improving the livelihoods of farmers, workers and the rural poor.
- Because you want to understand the challenge of tackling the interlinked agrarian and environmental crises.
- Because you are interested in exploring which policies help foster sustainable development that guarantees justice, equality and autonomy for poor and marginalized communities.
Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies (AFES) offers an interdisciplinary approach – combining political economy, political ecology, and political sociology – to understanding and confronting the impacts of global capitalist development on agrarian structures and environmental systems.
The focus of the AFES Major is on the social, political and economic dynamics of rural and agrarian change and environmental degradation, seen from a wider perspective of rural and rural-urban links, and across the Global South-North divides to include emerging international actors in agro-environmental terrain, such as BRICS. It offers a balance between theory, policy and practice. Specifically, the Major addresses themes including: land, water and natural resources use, access, property relations & conflict; climate change, environmental degradation; and extraction, use, management, and distribution of natural resources; rural poverty, social exclusion and marginalization; emerging popular alternatives such as food sovereignty and agroecology; as well as global agrarian and environmental politics, including (trans)national agrarian and environmental justice movements as well as food movements.
After completing the Major, participants will have developed a critical understanding of key processes facing the agricultural and rural sectors and the livelihoods of rural people, as well as the structures and processes that influence sustainable development. They will be familiar with useful tools in analyzing policies and strategies of governments, NGOs, social movements and private companies.
Revisit the 2024 AFES webinar
Target group
This Major targets professionals and students who have worked on or are interested in rural development and environmental issues. They can be recent graduates, or come from international development agencies, national governments, donor organizations, NGOs, social movements, trade unions, and from wider constituencies such as journalists, community-based workers, and agrarian-environmental activists.
Specializations
Students who wish to specialize further within the context of the Major may choose the following specialization:
Beyond the AFES specializations, students can combine their Major training with other specializations from across ISS. Take a look at the current list of specializations on offer
Check out what our student say about the AFES major!
Classes are generally kept at small sizes so the lecturers can answer questions in detail and tailor their lessons to the students’ interests
