Agricultural Economy

The course of Agricultural Economics (1.9c) targets first year students of the Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural Enterprises. Course’s primary aim is to address the following topics: Agricultural economics. Production factors in agricultural. Farms as rural businesses. The economics of agricultural production and production functions. Farms’ accounting. Calculating expenditures and production cost for agricultural products. Introduce to the concepts of quality for agricultural products, Packaging, Standardisation, and brand identity for agricultural products, storage and transportation of agricultural products .

Objectives

With the successful completion of this course students will have acquired the necessary knowledge and skills to understand the following theoretical and empirical aspects of Agricultural Economics for example: To recognize the needs and specificities of rural areas, To understand the structural changes that have occurred in the Greek agriculture. To know the basic principles of economic agricultural production (Organization of Agricultural Producers) Be able to design the necessary agricultural accounts. Be able to study a balance sheet of a farm. Can distinguish the production costs of an agricultural product. To calculate the cost of producing an agricultural product. Understand the concepts of Quality, Standardization, Packaging and Identification of agricultural products. To get familiar with the role of storage, transport and processing of Agricultural Products.

Prerequisites

No need

Syllabus

The main subjects of the course are: Introduce to the agricultural economics. Rural areas development needs. Structural changes in agricultural practices in Greece. Greek rural type farms and the need to transform this model (Greek farms typology and their classification). Examine the agricultural production factors (land, labor, capital) and Introduce to the production models (Demand and supply of agricultural products, the law of comparative advantage and the diminishing returns law or non-comparable performance). Introduce to the accounting of the farm (agricultural accounts). Expenditures in a farm, production cost of agricultural products (concept and content, production costs types, analysis of production costs, agricultural products costing methods). The financial results of the operation of farms (generally Introduction- financial results, agro-economic indicators, break even point. Illustrate the concepts of quality agricultural products, Packaging, Standardisation, Identification of agricultural products, storage and transportation of agricultural products