Teaching staff:
Beopoulos Nikolaos
Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens
Louloudis Leonidas
Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens

The main aim of the course ‘Environment and rural development’ is to provide graduate students knowledge which will render then capable to analyse and understand the relations of agriculture and the environment. The structure of the course follows a path starting with references to the causal procedures for the impacts agriculture exerts on the environment, continues with the methods and means for their mitigation and concludes with a discussion on sustainable rural development issues and reveal the positive role agricultural activities may play for environmental conservation.

The issues taught include:

1. Introductory (Emergence of the concept ‘environment’ during the XX century; Agricultural activity: particularities and prospects; General characteristics of the relationships between agriculture and the environment)
2. The problem of water bodies pollution in the agricultural zones and its mitigation. (Basic data for understanding the problem of water pollution due to agricultural activities. EU water policy)
3. EU agrienvironmental policy
4. Definitions and terms of agriculture
5.  The dynamics of development and the incorporation of the environmental element.