ETAGRO 2025: 18th International Conference of the Hellenic Association of Agricultural Economists Florina, Greece, October 10-11, 2025

Strengthening the sustainability and resilience of rural economies: Green transition, digitalization and competitiveness

The Conference is organized in association with the University of Western Macedonia.

Global developments at the economic, social and political domains affect severely the primary sector at all levels (local, regional, national, supra-national). Climate change, with more and more unpredicted extreme weather events, floods and droughts threaten farm and livestock production and call for radical changes and effective solutions that will ensure food security and livelihoods for farmers and rural dwellers. At the same time, new dietary patterns and alternative foods emerge that meet criteria such as locality, the sustainable use of natural resources and the interface with a healthy lifestyle. Increasing production costs, especially in terms of the costs of inputs – including water and energy – reduce the competitiveness of farms, threaten farmers’ incomes and increase consumer prices even for basic foodstuff. These challenges have a severe impact on rural areas, where the lack of economic diversification and infrastructure exacerbate depopulation loss of traditional social norms and cultural heritage. At the secondary sector level, global competition puts additional pressure on the performance of small local and regional agri-businesses and reduces the potential of small-holders and SMEs to play a positive role in short supply chains. Green entrepreneurship and corporate responsibility are on the spotlight to improve the role of agri-businesses in this environment but the lack of labor in rural areas calls for new technologies to support their operation, which can be costly and complex.

Digitalization and the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) are strongly supported by the European Union (EU) as possible solutions towards more sustainable, resilient and competitive farming systems and vibrant rural areas. Smart solutions, digital tools and precision agriculture applications are increasingly available to farmers, but in this situation, they are in dire need of advisory support, training and access to information and knowledge. Circular economy, sustainable intensification, resistant crop species and varies and livestock breeds, organic production and sustainable crop protection are among the numerous solutions that are actually being developed and tested or implemented in farming systems worldwide. Cooperatives and Farmer Organizations have the potential to contribute towards the mitigation of ongoing challenges, but still new forms of cooperation are needed to increase their competitiveness.

The 18th International Conference of the Hellenic Association of Agricultural Economists (ETAGRO 2024) aspires to bring together scientists from various disciplines working on all aspects of agricultural economy to provide responses to these issues based on research activities and projects findings.

Submission Guidelines

To be accepted for the Conference, the submissions must report work that is novel, well described, and suited to the Conference topics. Submissions must contain original data and meet international ethical standards. Selection criteria include high technical quality, relevance to the conference topics, and significant information content. Abstracts that are deemed commercial in nature will not be accepted.

Authors wishing to submit a contribution should consider the following guidelines:

• Your submission must be an extended abstract of maximum 1200 words (excluding references, including figures and tables) which will include an abstract, keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions.

• Your submission must be written in English.

• The following Microsoft Word template * must be used strictly for your submissions. Papers submitted not using the template, will be automatically rejected.

• Papers must be submitted in PDF format.

* Please note that the template and guidelines are subject to change once ETAGRO gets an agreement with a publishing service for its Proceedings. In this case an updated version of the template and guidelines will be available and must be strictly used for your extended abstract submission. If you have already submitted a paper, you’ll get notified to update your submission using the new template.

List of Topics

Topics of Interest include but not limited to:

• Agricultural, livestock and fisheries production: Economic performance and competitiveness

• Digitalization in the farming sector, agri-business and governance of rural areas

• Precision and smart agriculture: Social and economic implications and prospects

• Adoption of innovations and new technologies in the farming sector and agri-business

• Climate change resilience and vulnerability of farming systems, agri-business and rural areas

• Sustainable and climate-resilient systems, practices, species, varieties: Economic performance, social aspects and adoption patterns

• International trade of agricultural and food products

• Rural and regional development

• Agricultural products and food marketing – consumption trends and consumer behaviour

• Labelling and certification of agricultural and food products: Consumer preferences and market demand

• Environmental and natural resource economics

• Solidary agri-food networks

• Farm education and advisory; Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS)

• Alternative tourism and diversification of activities in rural areas

• Collective actions, networks and governance in rural areas

• Cooperatives: Organizational Design, Governance, and Performance

• Price analysis and market structure in the agri-food supply chain

• Agricultural and environmental policy

• Bio-economy – Renewable energy

• Circular economy: Production, agro-industry and consumption

• Agri-food supply chain management and logistics

• Green entrepreneurship in rural areas and the agri-food sector

Committees

Program Committee

• Konstantinos Tsiboukas (Chair) | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Stamatis Angelopoulos | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Maria Alebaki | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Garyfallos Arabatzis | Democritus University of Thrace | Greece
• Thomas Bournaris | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Fotios Chatzitheodoridis | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Elias Giannakis | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Konstantinos Galanopoulos | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Constantine Iliopoulos | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Eleni Kaimakoudi | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Irini Kamenidou | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Athanasios Kampas | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Pavlos Karanikolas | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Christos Karelakis | Democritus University of Thrace | Greece
• Efstathios Klonaris | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Achilleas Kontogeorgos | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Georgios Kountios | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Georgia Koutouzidou | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Stavriani Koutsou | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Alexandros Koutsouris | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Efstratios Loizou | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Spyridon Mamalis | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Katerina Melfou | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Davide Menozzi | University of Parma | Italy
• Anastasios Michailidis | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Stefanos Nastis | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Dimitrios Natos | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Ourania Notta | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Christos Papadas | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Georgia Papoutsi | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Maria Partalidou | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Alexandra Pavloudi | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Konstantinos Polymeros | University of Thessaly | Greece
• Athanasios Ragkos | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Anthony Rezitis | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Panagiota Sergaki | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Alexandra Sintori | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Žaklina Stojanović | University of Belgrade | Serbia
• Alexandros Theodoridis | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Eleni Theodoropoulou | Harokopio University of Athens | Greece
• Efthimia Tsakiridou | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Georgios Tsantopoulos | Democritus University of Thrace | Greece
• Irini Tzouramani | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Aspasia Vlachvei | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• George Vlontzos | University of Thessaly | Greece
• Aslı Zuluğ | Özyeğin Üniversitesi | Turkiye

        More to be announced.

Organizing committee

• Katerina Melfou (Chair) | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Elias Giannakis | Agricultural University of Athens | Greece
• Christos Karelakis | Democritus University of Thrace | Greece
• Spyridon Karytsas | Harokopeio University | Greece
• Achilleas Kontogeorgos | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Georgia Koutouzidou | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Efstratios Loizou | University of Western Macedonia | Greece
• Dimitrios Natos | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | Greece
• Alexandra Pavloudi | International Hellenic University | Greece
• Athanasios Ragkos | Agricultural Economics Research Institute | Greece
• Elias Tsourapas | HAICTA | Greece
• George Vlontzos | University of Thessaly | Greece

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to etagro.gr@gmail.com