The general goals of the Food, Agriculture and Rural Studies Section are to facilitate interdisciplinary and international communication and cooperation among scholars and practitioners whose work relates to policies, politics, practices and cultural aspects of food, agrarian issues (i.e.: land grabbing, reform, and tenure; labor; markets) and any dimension of rural studies, past or present, theoretical or applied. Issues addressed include, but are not be limited to, social structure, politics, economics, geography, the environment, culture, religion, the arts, and development. In addition to sponsoring panels, sessions, or round tables at LASA congresses, the Section pursues other methods of facilitating communications such as an electronic newsletter, an e-mail list, a Section’s website and a Facebook page.
The Section makes a concerted effort to foster collaboration between experts from Latin America and other regions of the world and since 2014 has instituted the Kerry Preibisch Travel Grant to foster the participation of young scholars at LASA and to improve and give continuity to rural and agrarian studies.