Agricultural University Of Athens The Agricultural University of Athens (formerly Highest Agricultural School of Athens) is the third oldest University in Greece. For over eighty years now, it has been serving agricultural sciences producing high quality graduates as well as scientific knowledge through basic and applied research. Situated in a 25-hectare green campus that stretches on both sides of the historic Iera Odos (the Sacred Way of antiquity), close to the centre of Athens, at the heart of the ancient Olive Grove, the University�s 16 building complexes comprise auditoriums, 41 fully equipped laboratories, a modern library, computer rooms, exemplary agricultural facilities (an arboretum, a vineyard, experimental fields, a flower garden, greenhouses, a cowshed, a sheep pen, a chicken coop, dairy installations, aquaculture tanks), museums, a student center, an indoor gym, sports fields etc. In these ideal surroundings, the students of the various faculties of the University are taught the principles of Agricultural Science during ten semesters.
The University consists of seven faculties: Crop Science, Animal Science, Agricultural Biotechnology, Rural Economics & Development, Food Science & Technology, Natural Resources Management & Agricultural Engineering as well as a Science Faculty. The first six faculties confer a Degree in Agriculture in their corresponding fields. Instruction during the first nine semesters includes lectures, laboratory work and field trips, while the tenth semester is devoted to the composition of a graduate thesis. The undergraduate curriculum is structured as a common core program for all faculties in the first five or six semesters, and as specialized faculty programs in the remaining semesters. Four months of practical training are also required to ensure familiarization with actual farm conditions.
The Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) has been discretely offering its valuable contribution to Greek Agriculture and Economy since 1920. Its professors and graduates have tackled successfully the challenging issues which 20th century Greece has had to face. They managed to carry out effectively the distribution of arable land to landless farmers, to settle the refugees after the tragic events in Asia Minor, to rid Greece of the threat of hunger by remarkably increasing farm production and to initiate exports of Greek fresh agricultural products, thus raising Greece to the status of an equal EU member.
Nowadays, the AUA is still fulfilling its role as a valuable advisor of the State in agricultural issues and it is actively participating in projects on rural development. With its considerable research activity, which is carried out within the framework of well-organized postgraduate studies and funded by the EU and various international and national organizations, the AUA is in a position to cover a wide range of very significant areas of daily life, such as food quality and safety, reasonable usage of water resources, biological farming, the use of alternative energy sources, applications of biotechnology in agriculture etc. Besides, the AUA has contributed significantly to environmental protection.
As in the past and present, the Agricultural University of Athens, meeting the challenges of the times, will be a bright beacon of knowledge and progress in the sciences of the earth and the environment.
