Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), an initiative to provide free or low-cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to public institutions in developing countries, was launched in October 2003. Currently, 69 countries (generally with an annual gross national income per capita of US$1,000 or less) are eligible to participate and access to 708 journals is provided. To date, 405 institutions in 55 countries have registered while 14 new publishers have recently joined the initiative. FAO and its partners are seeking to increase participation from users and publishers even further, and are reaching out to those countries that, as yet, have no subscribers. The journals cover subjects such as animal science, fisheries/aquatic science, forestry and plant science/soil science and include 23 journals in the biotechnology/applied microbiology category. See http://www.aginternetwork.org/en/index.php (in Arabic, English, French or Spanish) or contact [email protected] for further details.

16/02/2005