Ten-year FAO programme bridges information gap in agriculture
Ten years after its launch in 2003, Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) now provides free or low-cost access to over 3,500 key journals and 3,300 books on food, nutrition, agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences.
AGORA, a programme that brings key scientific literature on food, agriculture and related fields to students, researchers and scientists, has become a crucial tool for some of the world’s poorest countries.
A statement issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday noted that AGORA has opened the door on a huge array of technical knowledge for 116 of the least developed FAO member countries where food insecurity is greatest.
It said individual scientists, academics and practitioners from over 2,500 institutions in those countries have downloaded millions of articles from AGORA over the past ten years.
“Lack of access to knowledge is a major bottleneck for many poor countries to develop their agricultural sector and ensure food security,” it cited FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva at the launch of AGORA’s 10th anniversary in Rome.
Graziano da Silva added that knowledge is only valuable to the extent that those who need it could access it.
“And this is the strength of the AGORA partnership: FAO, publishers and the scientific community have come together to facilitate the access to knowledge to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.”
“Knowledge is a public good. By putting this public good at the reach of those in the poorer countries, we are helping to break an important barrier that hinders development,” he said.
The statement said AGORA is one of the four literature access programmes of the Research4Life public-private partnership between the World Health Organization, FAO, United Nations Environmental Programme, World Intellectual Property Organization, Cornell University, Yale University, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, nearly 200 internationally recognized publishers, and several technical partners including Microsoft.
“Our congratulations to AGORA for reaching a decade of service to scientists in the developing world,” it quoted Ron Mobed, Chief Executive Officer of Elsevier. “We are very proud to be a founding member of AGORA and Research4Life – working with partners like FAO towards enhanced quality of life for all.”
It said the Partners of the Research4Life programmes, including AGORA, have pledged their continued support until 2020.
Source: GNA