Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) is a program 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. Launched in October 2003, AGORA will provide access to 1278 journals from the world's leading academic publishers.

Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the goal of AGORA is to improve the quality and effectiveness of agricultural research, education and training in low-income countries, and in turn, to improve food security. Through AGORA, researchers, policy-makers, educators, students, technical workers and extension specialists have access to high-quality, relevant and timely agricultural information via the Internet.

AGORA Journal Collection

Blackwell Publishing, CABI Publishing, Elsevier, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, Springer-Verlag, and John Wiley & Sons are the founding publishers of AGORA, providing access to over 400 of their journals. Currently 39 publishers contribute journal content to AGORA.

For more information about joining as an AGORA publisher partner, contact us at agora@fao.org.

Who can participate?

Institutions wishing to use AGORA must register with FAO. Access to AGORA is password controlled, and upon successful completion of the registration process, your institution's library will receive a password that can be used by all students, faculty and/or staff at your institution.

The AGORA Publisher Partners offer free access to relevant institutions in the Band 1 countries listed below and low cost access to the Band 2 countries. The country lists are based on GNP per capita (World Bank figures, 2001). Institutions in countries with GNP per capita below $1000 are eligible for free access. Institutions in countries with GNP per capita between $1000-$3000 pay a fee of $1000 per year / institution. Individual publishers reserve the right to add to or delete from these country eligibility lists.

All institutions joining AGORA Band II will receive an initial free trial period of three months. Registered institutions will be invoiced in due course by FAO for the $1000 fee for access during 2007. The income generated will be invested in local training initiatives.

Within these countries AGORA will benefit not-for-profit national academic, research or government institutions in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences. Eligible institutions whose staff and students may have access to the journals are: universities and colleges; research institutes; agricultural extension centers, government offices and libraries.

Eligible Band I countries

Eligible Band II countries

Technical Requirements

Participating institutions will need computers connected to the Internet with a connection of 56k baud rate or higher. The system is designed to work with Internet Explorer version 4.0 or higher, Netscape version 6 or higher, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or higher; however we recommend you use the most recent browser versions available for the best experience and for safer browsing. Users will also need a recent version of Adobe Acrobat viewer for the journal articles in PDF format.

How to Sign Up

To join, please have your librarian complete the online AGORA registration form. Only one registration is required per institution. After completing the registration process, we will send your institution a user name and password, a user agreement to sign regarding terms of use and instructions for getting started.

Other Initiatives

If your institution is not eligible for access to journals through AGORA, you may be eligible for other journal access initiatives.