The Agrarian Studies Training Institute (ASTI) offers two weeks, intensive inter-disciplinary course
in agrarian studies, with faculty members and students from universities in Africa, Asia and Latin
America/Caribbean to address such needs. The Institute offers a unique opportunity for international
academic exchange of a high scholarly standard for both faculty and students. It generates new
knowledge based on shared experiences among researchers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and
promote the building of networking capacity among young scholars and activists in the Global South.
The course aims to introduce students to the trends and processes of agrarian transformations under
contemporary capitalism.

As is well known, there has been a new phase of the scramble for land and
other natural resources in the global south under the contemporary phase of corporate capitalism. The
processes unleashed by this phenomenon have had a devastating impact on the lives of the working
poor and also led to a new wave of resistance. Since this process is multi-faceted and multi-
dimensional in its character, it is only natural that the study of the political economy of contemporary
agrarian transformations is also interdisciplinary. This two week long interdisciplinary course is
aimed at training students in themes and methods of agrarian research in the present times. The first
ASTI course was held in 2017 and the second was held in 2018.