AGRIS is the international multilingual information system for the agricultural sciences and technology, created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1974. Recent statistics show a steady decline in the annual inputs from the participating members, especially from Asia/Pacific region, Africa and Latin American/Caribbean regions, in contrast to the upward trend in the production of documentation related to Agriculture.
The AGRIS New vision is a strategy that was agreed upon by member states and its overall object is to improve accessibility of science and technology information about agricultural development and food security in a multidimensional role, covering language issues as well as those of intellectual property and physical accessibility. The Strategy focuses on improving electronic publishing of documentation through a continually improvement of web-enabled AGRIS methodologies and tools (with a focus on the establishment of standards), aimed at effective exchange and retrieval of science and technology information in a multilingual environment.
This paper focuses on the AGRIS AP, a standard that has been created specifically to enhance description, exchange and subsequent retrieval of agricultural Document-Like Information Objects (DLIOs). The standard, developed in light of the new AGRIS vision, offers the flexibility to enhance the quality of description of agricultural information resources. The paper discuss the advantages of the AGRIS Application Profile vis a vis the current standards by pointing out its strengths, its applications and future improvements. AGRIS AP provides a minimum interoperability layer through which agricultural information can be described and exchanged.
