Author: superadmin

Lucas Basios and Lucas Gravias have many things in common, apart from the same name. Most importantly, they share the same passion to provide the best irrigation product to farmers and at the same time be able to protect protecting the environment by reducing the waste of water. Along with the third member of the team, agriculturist Aris Panagiotopoulos, they have created “Chloe Irrigation Systems” and they were awarded with the 2nd place in the final of the TROPHY-ΤΡΟΦΗ Challenge competition, held in July at the Benaki Museum.

Being classmates and friends, back in 2017 all three of them began creating a platform that will optimize the irrigation process and provide remote control to users. “My grandfather is a farmer and so one day he told me to go and water the fields at two o’ clock in the morning, as this was the best time for watering according to him. And I thought, well, there should be an easier way!” says Lucas Gravias, CEO of CHLOE and a mechanical engineer who specializes in data science and more specifically in the field of artificial intelligence. “So, we thought we could design an algorithm that would train each user separately and consider parameters such as the variety of the field, the terrain and the weather to make the right decisions for the right irrigation plan. “, adds Lucas Basios, the company’s CPO and software engineer.

Using state-of-the-art technology and artificial intelligence (A.I,), they have been able to create a ‘smart’ system that makes it easier for the farmer to find the best watering solutions for his field, while also reducing water consumption by helping significantly global problem of depletion of the aquifer. Practically, that means placing special sensors on each field, that collect all the data needed to achieve the correct irrigation plan. “We try to make it easier for the farmer and simplify the process so that at the end, all he needs to do is look at the recommended irrigation plan  on the screen of his phone or tablet and just click ‘Yes’ if he agrees and if he doesn’t, he can remotely make the changes he needs” says Lucas Basios.

Chloe Irrigation Systems team participated in the bootcamps of TROPHY-ΤΡΟΦΗ CHALLENGE and was among the 10 finalists who competed in front of the judges in the final stage. There, they presented their innovative product to the jury and won the 2nd place in the Agritech category, which they shared with the FIBRO-I team. “It was very interesting to me that the mentors during the bootcamps had a great experience of the Greek market, which provided us with meaningful feedback and tips on how to reach specific target groups to promote our product,” says Lucas. Gravias.

For Lucas Basios, in addition to the cash prize they won in the competition, a very important prize was their participation in both the Future Agro Challenge (FAC) that took place during the Global Entrepreneurship Conference (GEC) and the 84th Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF).  “Our participation in the GEC and the TIF was a unique experience. We got to know many startups, we came in direct contact with people from the agri-food sector and we managed to make the connections we want to promote our product. For example, just from TIF, we met many farmers who were interested in our product and so we were able to build a potential customer list. Without the TROPHY-ΤΡΟΦΗ CHALLENGE I don’t think we would have been given this opportunity! ”

The three of them aim to launch their product by May 2020 and be able to gradually make Chloe Irrigation Systems known not only in Greece but also in Europe, America and countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates, where appears to be a big water shortage problem. As Lucas Gravias says, “We may not understand it that much in Greece, but the problem of water shortage is increasingly affecting our planet. With Chloe’s product, we hope to contribute to protecting the environment and ultimately reducing costs for farmers and facilitating their production.”

Meet The Karra Sisters

Ioanna Karra, 28, and her twin sisters Zoe and Athanasia, 26, are fourth-generation goat farmers from Elinokastro, 25 kilometers outside of Trikala. They manage the family farm “Karra-Mandraki” with 1.200 free-range goats. The sisters attended the “Summer School” training program implemented by the Agricultural University of Athens, part of the New Agriculture for a New Generation program.

From an early age, the sisters would go to the farm and take the goats into the mountains. “We lived as migrant farmers for the first 12 years of our lives,” Ioanna said. “Every summer, from May to October, we played with the goats. We lived in a cabin, and sometimes we would have to change their grazing areas. We went all the way up to Grevena. At first, our mother wanted us to do something else because goat farming is hard work. But we don’t mind. Now we work together with our mother and our uncle. If we don’t have time for vacation, it doesn’t bother us.”

It’s not an easy life. A typical day on the farm runs from 7 in the morning to six in the evening, when the sisters make cheese and test out new products. They work in all weather conditions, and sometimes they have problems with hunters who scare the goats or kill their dogs. And if they don’t have enough dogs to protect the goats while they graze, they can fall prey to wolves. “In the last 2 months, we lost 15 goats,” Ioanna said.

The sisters knew from an early age that they wanted to work on the farm and pursued studies that would help them modernize and develop the family business. Ioanna studied economics at the University of Piraeus and then graduated from the Dairy School of Ioannina. The twins studied at the National Polytechnic University of Athens: Zoe studied chemical engineering with a specialization in food, and Athanasia studied electrical and computer engineering with a specialization in engines and energy. While at university, the sisters worked on the farm during vacations and holidays. They have been working with the goats full-time since 2015.

Ioanna and her sisters are improving the production process and stabilizing the quality of their products. For example, when heating milk to make yogurt, their mother used to check the temperature with her hand. If she could hold her hand in the milk for 30 seconds, she knew it was time to add the yogurt culture. Now the sisters heat the milk to a precise temperature. “It was difficult for our parents to deal with new technology,” Ioanna said. “We can track the health of the goats, the food they eat, their milk quality. We have the know-how and the time.”

The goats graze in the forest and return to the farm to sleep and be milked. The University of Thessalias provides GPS devices so that the sisters can track the goats and see what plants they eat. “We have 15 dogs to guide the goats, and we take shifts following them around,” Ioanna said. “The goats give birth around October, and we separate the pregnant goats from the rest. We follow the pregnant ones with a car and take them back to the farm when it’s time.”

Visions for the Future

The Karra sisters would like to launch their own brand of goat milk products: milk, yogurt, kefir, cream cheese, and other goat cheeses. They want to prove that the plants that the goats eat (which range from mint and cistus to oak or strawberry plants) have an impact not only on the taste of their milk, but also on its nutritional value. During AUA’s week-long “Summer School” in Trikala, the sisters sampled different products like feta cheese with truffle oil, which gave them ideas for products of their own. They also received theoretical training and professional advice and had a chance to meet other local producers.

“We want to move forward, but it’s much harder than it was 10 years ago,” Ioanna said. “The price of milk goes down every year, and profits are dropping. Now 0.45 euros per kilo for regular goat milk and 0.50 euros per kilo for organic goat milk is considered a good price.” The sisters want to open a plant to process free-range milk products with other local producers in order to give their milk the value it deserves. They’ve made sketches and studies for the new business and applied to a Greek program that gives money to farmers so that they can manufacture products. But it’s been difficult to find collaborators. “There are five other goat farmers in Elinokastro, but they are skeptical of our plan. They think we have an ulterior motive,” Ioanna said. “Before, everyone wanted to be at the top, but now people want to cooperate. We really want to change the mentality.”

In the future, the sisters would like to welcome visitors to the farm to see how they work. “You could play with a little goat, see how it is milked and fed, then follow the goat paths through the forest, and at the end, we could offer some of our unique products,” Ioanna said. “Most people admire the fact that we are young women running this farm. We want people to love goats as much as we do. They are very clever!”

Thessaloniki, Greece – This year, the program “Sheep and Goat: Enhancing Dairy and Meat Sector” at the American Farm School (AFS), a part of the “New Agriculture for a New Generation” (NANG) program, will collaborate with the Alternative Tourism program at AFS to promote the city of Xanthi in a three-day international conference, 7-9 June, celebrating the Belle Epoque era of Xanthi and its long-forgotten breed of shorthorn cattle.

Xanthi and the Rhodope Mountains are home to the Greek shorthorn cattle, the only indigenous breed left in Greece. “We’re trying to see what we can do to save this special breed,” said Vicky Krystallidou, project leader for the Sheep and Goat program. “If we lose it, we won’t have any more. All the other breeds are imported from Europe.” Only 600-700 of the cattle remain, grazing freely in the mountains between Xanthi and Komotini. “We hope to certify the breed, giving farmers an opportunity to sell it at a higher price,” Vicky said. “If they are paid more, they will have a reason to protect it. We’ve done this before, with the Dexter breed of cattle in the UK.” The shorthorn cattle doesn’t produce much milk, but the program has partnered with Brigade, an association of chefs, who will come to Xanthi to make recipes from the meat. “They say it really does taste better,” Vicky said. “And since the breed is from Pomakohoria, we’ll also have an opportunity to work with the Pomaks, Greek Muslims who live in villages in the Rhodope Mountains, and highlight their culture and their involvement in cattle rearing.”

The Sheep and Goat program has a number of other exciting initiatives. Vicky visits farms in 15 regions throughout Northern Greece, from Ioannina to Orestiada and down to Karditsa. Each region has about eight farmers whose farms she visits two to three times per month. She examines each farmer’s animals and gives them advice about reproduction, nutrition, and disease in order to help them enhance their products. She also works with them to set individual goals. “The social dynamics of every group are different,” she said.

Vicky also works with food scientists, butchers, cheese makers, and chefs to develop new products from goat milk. “Greece ranks the first in goat production, but we don’t have a unique goat cheese,” she said. In collaboration with Efi Koutsomitropoulou at Creta Farms’ new research and development initiative New Milk and Professor Thomas Moschakis from the Department of Food Science at Aristotle University, she produced a new drink made from fermented goat-milk yogurt which is available in plain, strawberry, and fig flavors. Next year, Vicky aims to produce a spreadable cheese from goat milk, and the following year, a hard yellow goat milk cheese.

In addition, Vicky is working with the Hellenic Agricultural Organization DIMITRA (ELGO DIMITRA) to research the feasibility of producing heavyweight lambs. Lambs in Greece are usually slaughtered for Easter feasts at 12 kilos, while heavyweight lambs are slaughtered at 18-20 kilos. “Although Greece ranks third in sheep production in Europe, we import much of our meat from New Zealand and Australia,” she said. “There is an opportunity here, but farmers don’t know it. By encouraging farmers to shift to heavyweight lamb production, we can reduce our dependence on imports from other countries.” Vicky is running a number of experiments with ELGO DIMITRA to compare the shorthorn cattle with indigenous breeds from Florina and Chios and a number of imported breeds. “We are performing sensory analyses, measuring the distribution of fat, the differences in the meats. We are also monitoring the cost of raising the animals based on age and weight,” Vicky said. “If farmers raise the animals for a longer period of time, they must know that they will profit.”

Meet Tonia

Tonia Galani, 31 years old, is an ornithologist and cofounder of the birdwatching company Plegadis. She lives in Ioannina and participated in the first class of the Alternative Tourism program at the American Farm School, a part of the “New Agriculture for a New Generation” program. She loved birds from an early age. In the spring, she would often spend a few weeks living with her grandfather in the mountains of East Zagori. “I remember that we had a cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) visiting the trees near our house in the early morning,” Tonia said. “My grandpa loved its morning song so much that he would often take out our old tape recorder and tape the cuckoo’s birdsong. Then he would play the tape in Ioannina during winter, so that he could be reminded of his village and the spring time there.”

Tonia’s grandfather taught her her first birdsongs and instilled in her a love in nature. “Birds are vibrant; they fill space with their energetic moves and their lovely colours. By observing them, you often get a better understanding of the place you are in. If you listen carefully, you can understand the changes in seasons. Birds are a reminder of never giving up and always trying to sing, no matter how hard a winter may be. So what’s not to love about birds?” Tonia chose to study biology at Aristotle University. Her love of birdwatching was sparked by a field trip she took to Lake Kerkini with an ornithology class. “When we arrived, I was amazed by the huge populations of cormorants and pelicans all fishing together,” Tonia said. “Then we got out the binoculars and fieldscopes, and everything we could see with our bare eyes became even more exciting, as we looked closer at all the birds in front of us. It was like watching a nature documentary live in front of my eyes. I got my first binoculars after that and ever since, there is not a bird that passes by without me turning my head to identify it.”

Indeed, when I met Tonia during the “Train the Trainers” event in Elatochori, I was charmed by her infectious, nerdy enthusiasm and her encyclopedic knowledge of the birds in the area. Often during our conversation, she would pause to identify the calls of sparrows, tilting her head as if listening to music. “If I had to pick my favorite bird, I’d choose the Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) because of its rare beauty and unique beak. It is black and white and has very clean lines, and because of its curved beak, it searches for food in a very graceful manner, swiping left and right in the mud of the shores, and that’s a joy to observe.”

Founding the Birdwatching Company Plegadis

Tonia and fellow ornithologist Nikos Boukas founded Plegadis in March 2017 while working as ornithology researchers. They loved taking their friends on birdwatching trips to the Amvrakikos Gulf and the Delta of Kalamas River, two of the most important and bird-rich wetlands in Greece. “Epirus is a unique place for birdwatching because it balances both unique mountain areas like Zagori and Tzoumerka as well as beautiful wetlands,” Tonia said. “Zagori already attracts many nature-oriented visitors, and birding can enhance their hiking experiences.”

The duo overcame lots of bureaucracy to found Plegadis because birdwatching tours were a new concept in Greece. “We met with many employees from the Greek Tourism Organization, the Tax Office, and with accountants and lawyers in order to make sure that we complied with all the touristic legislation and tax rules,” Tonia said. “Then we chose the right equipment for our activities: binoculars, fieldscopes, digiscoping tools, field guides, kids’ equipment, transportation. We visited many exhibitions to get our hands on as many binoculars and fieldscopes as we could, in order to decide which would best fit our expectations and budget.” The Alternative Tourism program helped Plegadis gain recognition and grow its network of local collaborators. Tonia and Nikos now work with other companies that offer alternative experiences in Epirus like mountain hikes or bike hikes and want to offer bird tours as well.

The Amvrakikos Gulf is one of Tonia’s favourite day tour spots because it’s a large area that combines birdwatching and photography with exquisite culinary options. “We start our tour early in the day from the north part of the wetland. We hop into our 4×4 vehicle which has all the equipment travellers may need. Throughout the tour, we make short stops along lagoons or river marshes in order to observe and photograph birds with our equipment. It’s so rewarding to meet different people from around the world and to help them identify bird species that they have never seen before, or to teach beginners the basics of birding. We usually stop for lunch at Koronisia, a unique place located on a narrow strip of land between the sea and the lagoon. Then as we travel south, the evening colours create a picturesque atmosphere while flocks of birds fill the sky, flying back to their roosts. Our day ends with a meal in Preveza, which is known for its delicious seafood restaurants.” Nikos and Tonia’s guests often send them photos that they took during the tour, or even share pictures of birds they observe in their homelands.

“Each year has been better than the previous, and we already have bookings for the upcoming spring months,” Tonia said. “Our dream is to further establish our presence in the alternative touristic package of Epirus and to promote the birdwatching interest in this protected area. We hope to make Greece a popular birding destination in the winter as well. Most of our customers come from Europe and America and visit in the spring and summer, but birdwatching in Greece is very interesting during the winter season too, because many species migrate here from northern or eastern Europe. Greek travellers are still not familiar with the idea of birdwatching. For this reason, one of our visions as ornithologists is to raise Greek travellers’ awareness and interest in birding, to help them recognize the beauty of birds.”

Meet Paschalis

Paschalis Harizanis, 66, was born in Serres. He is a professor in the Faculty of Crop Science and Director of the Laboratory of Sericulture and Apiculture at the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), where he teaches classes in the Pathology of Bees and Silkworms, the Pathology of Productive Insects, and Sericulture and Apiculture. His Sericulture Laboratory, part of the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food, is the silk farming reference laboratory for all of Greece. He leads the Apiculture program implemented by Agricultural University of Athens for the program New Agriculture for a New Generation.

Paschalis’ interest in bees began when he was 12 years old, a student at the American Farm School (AFS). The first class he took at AFS was an apiculture class, and though he didn’t intend to study apiculture, the school changed his mind. He received a BS degree in General Agriculture from Aristotle University, and while at university, he spent his summers working at AFS. In the summer of 1973, his first summer working at the school, he met a professor of apiculture from the Ohio State University–Columbus who was providing foreign technical assistance to Greece. “I asked if I could help him and learn some beekeeping,” Paschalis said. “And at the end of the summer, he asked me if I wanted to go to the US and Canada for three months the following summer to live with two beekeeping families. Of course I said yes.” The next summer, Paschalis split his time between Canada and the US. While there, he was able to develop his English skills, and in Canada, his professor took him to an apiculture congress where he met a professor from the University of California, Davis, who encouraged him to apply for a PhD. “I was already a beekeeper at that point, so I didn’t have to learn the techniques–that was a big plus for me,” Paschalis said. “This chain of circumstances led me to my Master and PhD in Entomology at UC Davis.” He returned to Greece in 1983 and worked as a professor at the Technological Educational Institution of Thessaloniki. He also started a successful beekeeping business that he ran until he started working at AUA in 1994. “Beekeeping is my whole life, my hobby and my business,” Paschalis said.

I visited Paschalis during his apiculture class at AUA as he demonstrated for his students how to open a hive for inspection. We stood around him in a circle wearing our beekeeper’s masks as he lit pine needles in the smoker and removed frames to show us the different types of bees, the eggs in their cells, and the queen. He scraped some honey from a frame and held it out to us. “Taste, taste!” he said. It tasted sweet, made from eucalyptus and other plants and flowers from the area. Every week, the students examine a different type of honey. This week, they examined the moisture of pine honey using a refractometer. “According to EU standards, the percent of water in pine honey should not exceed 20%,” Paschalis said. “If the honey has too much moisture, it becomes thin and will ferment. Tropical areas and places like Canada with a lot of humidity produce honey like this. Often they will buy honey from other countries and mix it with their own in order to lower the percentage of moisture. Dry climates like Greece and California produce less honey (about 15 kilos per colony compared to 50-60 kilos per colony in Canada), but the quality is better. All the honey in Greece is very thick.” Paschalis and his lab have also created over 55 videos, 15-20 minutes long, to teach students the basics of beekeeping. They teach 12 groups of about 20 undergraduates every week.

The year-long Apiculture program that Paschalis is implementing for NANG uses similar materials. The program offers young people with an interest in beekeeping 100 hours of theoretical and practical training. Last year, the program ran in Volos and Karditsa, and this year, it is running in Larissa, Lamia, and Aliartos. Paschalis and a team of six travel to these sites and lead four-day training sessions throughout the spring. “Often, our beneficiaries are young members of beekeeping families,” Paschalis said. “By the end of the program, they get a complete education in apiculture.”

Meet Vicky

Vicky Krystallidou, 44 years old, was born and lives in Thessaloniki. She’s the project leader for the program “Sheep and Goat: Enhancing Dairy and Meat Sector” at the American Farm School (AFS), a part of the New Agriculture for a New Generation program. She’s married and has two sons, 10 and 8. Her family came from Istanbul in 1914, before the population exchange. Vicky is an animal scientist who received her PhD in Animal Nutrition and an MSc in Dairy Animal Science from the University of Reading after being awarded a scholarship from IKY (Greek State Scholarship Institute). She holds Diplomas in Animal Production from the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Thessaloniki and ASPETE (certified adult educator). “I was drawn into animal production by pure luck,” Vicky said. “I really wanted to be a doctor, but I failed those exams. Then I had a degree as a dentist assistant. But after the first semester in animal production, I loved it. I think that people who start working with animals come to really love them. I don’t think I would do anything different.”

After returning to Greece, Vicky worked as a part-time lecturer at the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Thessaloniki and Larisa and as an advisor at Hellenic Feed Industries (ELVIZ). Then she came to American Farm School, where she has worked as a lecturer at Perrotis College and as a project leader in the Strategic Project Management Office for the past four years. Her research interests include animal nutrition and its impact on animal products and human health, monitoring feed formulations to meet quality performance and animal health standards, and evaluating chemical and nutritional value of feeds. “She’s also a very good cook,” said Ilias Kalfas, project leader of the Small Farm Adoption program. “She may not have a pencil on her, but she definitely has a knife!”

As part of the Sheep and Goat program, Vicky visits farms in 12 regions throughout Northern Greece, from Ioannina to Orestiada and down to Karditsa. Each region has about 8 farmers whom she visits two to three times per month. She examines each farmer’s animals, and gives them advice to help them enhance their products, and works with them to set goals. “The social dynamics of every group are different,” she said. “In Orestiada, for example, I work with Pomaks, Greek Muslims who live in villages in the Rhodopi Mountains near Bulgaria.”

Vicky is also working with food scientists, butchers, cheese makers, and chefs to develop new products from sheep and goat milk. In collaboration with Creta Farms’ new Research and Development initiative New Milk and the Department of Food Science at Aristotle University, she produced a new drink made from fermented goat-milk yogurt which is available in multiple flavors. In the next two years, Vicky aims to produce spreadable and hard cheeses from goat milk. In addition, she is working with the Hellenic Agricultural Organization DIMITRA to research the feasibility of producing heavyweight lambs. Lambs in Greece are usually slaughtered at 12 kilos, while heavyweight lambs are slaughtered at 18-20 kilos. “Although Greece ranks third in sheep production in Europe, we import much of our meat from New Zealand and Australia,” Vicky said. “By encouraging farmers to shift to heavyweight lamb production, we can reduce our dependence on imports from other countries.”

Vicky is also collaborating with the Alternative Tourism program at AFS, which has adopted the city of Xanthi this year for its activities. Xanthi and the Rhodopi Mountains are home to the Greek shorthorn cattle, the only indigenous breed left in Greece. Only 600-700 of the cattle remain, grazing free ly in the mountains between Xanthi and Kommotini. “We hope to certify and protect the breed, giving farmers an opportunity to sell it at a higher price. We’re going to have a three-day international conference, 7-9 June, focusing on the Belle Epoque era of Xanthi and its long-forgotten breed of shorthorn cattle. We’ve partnered with Brigade, an association of chefs, who will come to Xanthi to make recipes from the meat–they say it really does taste better,” Vicky said. “And since the breed is from Pomakohoria, we’ll also have an opportunity to work with the Pomaks and highlight what they are doing.”

Meet George

George Papadopoulos, 52 years old, was born in Kilkis and now lives in Thessaloniki. He is an experienced table grape farmer and an active mentor in the New Agriculture for a New Generation program. He studied law at Aristotle University and went to the US for his master’s degree. He lived in the US for six years, got married, and had three kids. In 2004, he and his family returned to Greece, and he started a construction company. He won contracts to privatize the national highways of Greece, renovating the roads, toll stations, and irrigation system. He was responsible for building the new, faster road from Lamia to Athens.

George’s father and grandfather grew grapes, and now he is expanding their business. He has 8 hectares of Crimson Seedless grapes and is preparing another 16 hectares by buying up neighboring farms. Because of his construction business, he owns all the machinery he needs to prepare the farmland at a relatively low cost. He covers his vineyards to protect them from the weather, first with a plastic net and then with a plastic cover to protect the final harvest from September and October rains.

Mentoring the Table Grape Groups from the “Small Farm Adoption” Project

George has been involved with innovations in the NANG program as well. He started helping two years ago, during the initial design of the program, and he was the first mentor. He is working with the American Farm School (AFS) to create an end-to-end system that will precisely monitor and control the cultivation, harvest, processing, and shipping of table grapes. “We use sensors to measure everything on vine during the cultivation period, including the quality of the soil, the grapes’ sweetness, color, health. Now we are proceeding with a system to monitor storage and transportation from the field to the final buyer. We want the buyer to be able to see exactly how the grapes were grown and to know the name of the farmer, to see his face. I believe that in two or three years, all the big supermarket chains will be asking for this level of precision and accountability.”

The four table grape groups have already been recognized for their outstanding achievements. They were chosen by the European Commission’s Smart Specialisation Platform as an implementation point, to show other member states how to grow grapes using smart technologies and to create a protocol for the next decade.

In collaboration with AFS, George is also working to bring a new white, seedless grape variety, Autumn King, to Greece from California. “Crimson Seedless is also a California variety,” George said. “These varieties perform well here because our weather matches California weather. But we’re going to have even better results. The Americans can’t believe the size of our grapes and their beautiful crimson color. And it’s all natural. With wine grapes, you’re not interested in how the product looks. You smash it. But with table grapes, people buy first with the eyes. The grapes must look beautiful and they must taste good and be sweet.” George hopes that they will be able to take the Autumn King variety from California next year.

One of George’s big goals is to organize the young farmers into teams. “If you are not a team, you don’t have power because you won’t be able to deliver the quantities that the markets need,” he said. “I have a contract with a huge company from the UK called Jupiter. They want a truck of grapes per day, 25 tons. In order to deliver this quantity, I need 400 hectares. We prefer to have young farmers on these teams because they are open to learning. They see the results from the first year, and they’re willing to grow with us. With only 2 hectares you can earn 30.000 euros profit. What other industry in Greece can provide you with a profit like that?”

Meet Thomas

Thomas Karagiorgos was born in Veroia and lives in Thessaloniki. He completed his PhD in the field of Sports, Tourism and Recreation Management, in the School of Physical Education and Sport Science at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He organizes sports and adventure programs, works as a researcher in academic research projects, and currently teaches in the Alternative Tourism program at the American Farm School (AFS), which is part of the Stavros Niarchos-funded “New Agriculture for a New Generation” (NANG) program.

“As a child, I was involved in alpine skiing,” Thomas said. “I started skiing when I was five years old. My father loves to hike and be active. He encouraged me to participate in a lot of sports and was a good role model for me. Because of him, I’m passionate about outdoor sports, and I love hiking, alpine skiing, and canyoning all around Greece.”

When I asked Thomas about his favorite places in Greece for mountain activities, he said, “Pelion is my favorite. I think it has a lot of potential, and it is a nice place to relax, far from civilization. I also love Mount Olympus and Zagorohoria.”

In 2015 and 2017, Thomas participated in Piera Creta, an outstanding ski mountaineering event on Mount Psiloritis in central Crete. “This is a very unique experience that combines sea and mountain at the same time,” he said. “It was a recreational opportunity for me, and the event committee welcomes its participants with the special hospitality of Crete!”

Thomas’s passion for outdoor activities and his academic interest in sports science, marketing, and alternative tourism complement one another. He had worked as an organizer of outdoor activities for many companies. He has also managed a children’s summer camp in Pefkochori, Halkidiki. Having worked in this field for 11 years, he has befriended many others in the space. “It’s a small world,” he said. “I know a lot of people, and we travel together, exchange opinions, share job opportunities.” Since 2018, he has worked as a researcher in the Sports, Tourism and Recreation Management lab based at Aristotle University and coordinated by Dr. Alexandris. Their current project is called ‘Run For Health’ and is about the contribution of running events to the welfare of the local community. These projects offer many opportunities to cooperate with European academics and professionals in the same field.

Becoming a Teacher

Thomas received a BA in Sports Science from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His specialization was in outdoor activities. He holds two master’s degrees, the first in Tourism and Recreation from the University of Thrace in Komotini, and the second in Business Administration from the Economics Department of Aristotle University. When his supervisor asked him to give two lectures in his course, Thomas realized that he liked teaching. Teaching in the classroom was a natural extension of his experiences as a camp manager and outdoor activities organizer.

Now Thomas teaches three adult courses at the American Farm School: Outdoor Activities and Recreation, Coastal and Maritime Tourism, and Marketing in Alternative Tourism. “The American Farm School has one of the most efficient programs in Greece,” Thomas said. “The classes combine practice and theory, and I often invite people from the working world to visit my classes.” After participating in NANG’s “Train the Trainers” weekend in Elatochori, he told me that he especially liked the psychological training modules because they gave him tools to reflect on his teaching in the classroom.

Thomas hopes to continue researching outdoor activities so that he can help recreation companies in Greece offer high quality sports services. “The businesses in Greece have a lot of potential,” he said. “I’d like to contribute and inform the owners and staff about international standards and best practices in the sports tourism field, and help them make better use of analytics and data. And most importantly, I want to help people understand how outdoor sports can improve their quality of life.”

Xanthi, Greece – Alternative Tourism (the term has now been replaced: we are talking now about “special” tourism) is a broad term, necessarily so. It encompasses any type of activity where the visitor can experience part of the local culture. Traditional tourism—for Greece, sand and sun—has disadvantages: it only happens in the summer, and it doesn’t always attract the right people, with the devastating effect of creating social problems for the local communities that accept visitors. In Zakynthos, for example, British tourists come to get drunk nonstop, to do what they can’t do at home, and the local social network is almost broken. Now that tourism is the main industry in Greece, we’ve realized that there are many advantages to attracting tourists who respect the ecosystem, the residents, and the culture, while expanding the tourist season. Thus, Greece now markets itself as a 365-day destination.

The “New Agriculture for a New Generation” (NANG) program’s Alternative Tourism Program aims to make a name for itself in the industry. The highly competitive, year-long program accepts 100 students in total: 50 in Thessaloniki, 25 in Volos, and 25 in Ioannina. Trainees apply electronically, and their applications are reviewed by a three-member committee. They are selected based on strict criteria. Last year, the program received 350 applications for Thessaloniki alone. Applicants must be between 18 and 40 years old. Most are university graduates; many do not have master’s degrees and are looking for a second career path.

Last year’s trainees worked to redefine the tourist profile of the mountain village of Elatochori Pierias, which neighbors Katerini and Mount Olympus. Trainees and professors worked with the residents of Elatochori to expand and diversity the village’s tourism business, which in recent years had been overly dependent on its ski center. The trainees proposed an innovative tourism product that combined unique gastronomic experiences, outdoor activities, and creative workshops for adults and children. The proposed tourism product uses the flowers of the plant Sideritis Scardica as a brand since Greek mountain tea flourishes in the area. “A place can really flourish when the people who live and breathe there have a vision and a desire to work and make the best possible use of their region’s resources. This love for their home and care for its development is one of the first things one can perceive about Elatochori and its inhabitants,” said Antonia Galani, a biologist who worked on the project.

This year, 2018-2019 trainees decided to “adopt” the city of Xanthi and tried to utilize all of its resources—natural, cultural, and human—with the main goal of creating a holistic tourism product which combines the multiculturalism, the gastronomy, and also the natural wealth of the area.

“First of all, you have to convince the residents that you care about them and share their concerns. You can’t go in as an intruder or as an expert. This year, Xanthi was a greater challenge than Elatochori because it is a larger area, and Xanthi’s officials and agencies already have already included in their cultural agenda many activities and many plans with the aim of increasing tourism,” said Communications Coordinator Maria Soumelidou, who teaches in the program “Legal Framework and Ethics in Tourism.”

The final proposal came when the trainees and their trainers collaborated with specialized partners in the area, based, on the one hand, on the region’s rare breed of shorthorn cattle and on the other hand, on Xanthi’s Belle Epoque era. The trainees formed five working groups, each focused on a different activity like gastronomy, urban/cultural tourism, outdoor activities in the urban environment, marketing, and costing. Each group of 10-15 trainees collaborated with one or two trainers and one mentor from the research team that consisted of graduates from the same program. The trainees chose their groups according to their interests and experiences after carefully reading the feasibility study prepared by the research team.

We believe that the NANG program will bear more fruit if we build synergies between different sectors. The best way to highlight this collaboration is a two-day event that includes an international business conference, a culinary symposium, an interactive demonstration of new trends in wellness tourism and conference tourism, and finally, a dramatized tour of the history of the Old Town of Xanthi. At the same time, catering companies in Xanthi will cook for the first time the tasty meat of the shorthorn cattle and have recipes available to the public. These animals are monitored by animal scientists and veterinarians from the American Farm School while the butchering and maturing is done by a team of professionals and experts in Xanthi. In fact, this action will “travel” to other parts of Greece to highlight indigenous Greek cattle breeds.

The program also enables its graduates to work for two months in an alternative tourism-related businesses and/or organizations in Greece. “More than 60 businesses have requested to host one or two graduates,” Maria said. “These are businesses, municipalities, or organizations all over Greece who are either implementing or want to implement an alternative tourism strategy but don’t have the know-how. Today, 64 graduates work in these businesses, while many have been hired permanently. Like the Xanthi project, this experience places our trainees out in the real world, where there are many miles and obstacles between the birth of an idea and its realization.”

“After three years, we will have 300 enthusiastic graduates of this program. People from all different backgrounds who have the same dream,” Maria said. “I hope to see lots of collaborations, synergies, great ideas. I want our graduates to start their own companies and change people’s attitudes about what tourism means in Greece.”

Meet Serkos

Serkos Haroutounian is a Professor of Chemistry and Vice Rector of Academic, Administrative, and Student Affairs at the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA). He has recently become the scientific officer at AUA responsible for the “New Agriculture for a New Generation” program.

Serkos served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization DIMITRA (ELGO DIMITRA) from 2013-2015. ELGO DIMITRA is the largest agricultural organization in Greece, responsible for rural research, training, and education in the agricultural sector; control and quality assurance of Greek agricultural products; as well as all controls in the meat and dairy circuit.

With a scientific background in chemistry, Serkos’s main area of study is biomedical research with a specialization in the study of estrogen hormones and the development of new anti-cancer drugs. He earned his PhD at AUA in collaboration with the University of Illinois, where he later returned as a postdoctoral researcher (1985-1987) and then as a visiting professor (1992-1993). When I visited him at his office at AUA, he showed me a framed diagram of his academic pedigree, a lineage of mentorship that goes all the way back to 15th century Italian doctors and 17th century French apothecaries.

“I often tell my students: In 30 years, 62% of jobs will concern specialities we can not even imagine today. Without a solid scientific background, you will not be able to succeed. Basic sciences like chemistry will give you a solid foundation for the future.” Serkos told me about his father, who started working as an electrician in the early 1950s. Originally, he was repairing jukeboxes, then radios. Then came the transistors, then the TV–first black and white, then color–and now the modern flatscreen. “If he had only learned the jukebox, we would have died of hunger!” Serkos said. He seems to have inherited his father’s appetite for challenges and new knowledge. He recently changed departments, joining the Department of Animal Production and Aquaculture Sciences. In addition to biomedical applications of organic chemistry, his research interests now include natural products, climate change mitigation, and the promotion and certification of Greek traditional agricultural products.

“Greece does not produce large quantities of its products,” Serkos said. “Productions are small. A medium-production winery in Greece produces 150,000 bottles, while one in California produces 3-5 million bottles. You understand the difference in scale economies and the impact on the final price. We cannot compete with them on price. Instead, we have to invest in the quality and uniqueness of our products.”

The Wine, Fava, and Tomataki of Santorini

Serkos has done much work to study and promote the local products of Santorini. Although the island’s particular soil-climate environment (volcanic soil, constant sunshine, poor water resources, and strong winds) is not conducive to agriculture, it offers some important advantages, mainly because crops must grow under such stressful conditions. To cope with these unfavorable conditions, the plants produce secondary metabolites, substances with significant bioactivity, For example, Santorini grapes are particularly rich in polyphenols, which are known to exhibit significant antioxidant activity and are used to produce a wide array of cosmetics, medicines, and dietary supplements. Similarly, Santorini wines are much richer in polyphenols than the wine of other regions.

And because Santorini, due to its geomorphology, can not sustain extensive sheep and goat farming, its inhabitants have traditionally cultivated fava as a source of protein. Although fava is grown all over the world, the variety cultivated in Santorini (Lathyrus clymenum) is unique. It is an ancient variety, rich in protein, which was thought to have become extinct. However, the discovery of fava remains in the prehistoric settlement of Akrotiri, the ancient Minoan settlement that was destroyed by the explosion of the Santorini volcano in the 16th century BCE, enabled scientists to certify that the same variety was still being cultivated on the island. Santorini fava boils faster, has a soft, light texture, and has a special, slightly sweet taste. As a result, it’s much more expensive than other varieties of fava.

Finally, due to its particular soil, Santorini’s tomataki (little tomato) is much sweeter and healthier than those grown on mainland Greece.

Serkos has also been involved in the promotion and certification of a variety of other Greek agricultural products, including the tsipouro of Tyrnavos, the Vatikiotio onion, and the cheeses of central and northern Greece (Tsalafouti, Kaskaval, and Kalloni).

Exploiting the Knowledge of the Ancient Greeks

Serkos is also interested in the ancient Greeks’ knowledge of the pharmaceutical uses of plants. His research team has studied the work of Dioscorides, a Greek physician of the first century AD who studied medicinal plants and the medicines that can be obtained from them. Based on Dioscorides’ ancient texts, Serkos’ team published a journal article in 2015 that mapped modern plants to those mentioned by Dioscorides. Today, Serkos continues to study these formulations, but also their production using modern techniques. The knowledge gained from these studies helped Serkos implement the EU-funded research project LIFE-CONOPS to combat new species of mosquitoes that have invaded Greece and Italy as a result of climate change. Based on the ancient Greeks’ knowledge that juniper wood is not penetrated by insects, Serkos and his team studied all the juniper species in Greece to develop a new mosquito repellant that is expected to be released next summer.

“I started at AUA as a scientific collaborator in 1981, and this is my 38th year of teaching,” Serkos said. “Now when I tell my students how long I’ve served at AUA, they just stare at me.”

Serkos will attempt to make the NANG program at AUA more effective and open to new activities. To this end, he is collaborating with Professor George Papadakis from the Department of Natural Resources and Agricultural Engineering. “George specializes in energy efficiency, modern sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy sources, all of which will help promote innovation in the program,” Serkos said.