For several decades now, it has been vital to combine sustainable development with increasingly productive agriculture, in order to cope with population growth while respecting ecological and environmental constraints. As people have modified their environment, the resulting new environmental conditions have encouraged the proliferation of pests and diseases, which have in turn threatened harvests. Sustainable development is currently the only form of development that satisfies the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to satisfy theirs. To be sustainable, development has to be ecologically sound, socially equitable and economically viable.

The management staff graduating with a GEDAH Masters will be specialized in the following fields:

• Management of the sustainable development concept
• Taxonomy and relations between pests and beneficials
• Biodiversity of the arthropod fauna
• Pest and disease control
• Toxicological impact of chemical inputs on the environment and non-targeted fauna biodiversity
• Cropping systems and plant/pest relations
• Research and modelling methodology
• Biodiversity of other pests and diseases
• Water management for irrigation
• Analysis of pesticide residues to ensure healthy, environmentally friendly production
• Management of the environmental risks for horticultural system players (pesticides, effluent, organic waste)
• Management of the risks for supplies to urban areas, and national and international legislation.