The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s Agriculture Information Management Team celebrates Multilingualism Day on 23 September by highlighting the team’s multilingual knowledge-sharing platforms including AGRIS and AGROVOC, which combined provide access to content available in more than 110 different languages.

AGRIS, The International System for Agricultural Science and Technology, is one of the most comprehensive search engines in food and agricultural scientific literature providing free access to millions of bibliographic records in 113 different languages. 

AGRIS is also an international network of data providers, including publishers, governments and research organisations, that share metadata about food and agricultural science publications. These records are provided in multilingual formats and frequently include full text links to connect users to scientific literature worldwide. This globally collaborative network strengthens multilingualism and the equitable representation of agricultural research conducted worldwide.

AGRIS also enables multilingual searching. Users can search using keywords in more than 100 languages. Searching by typing keywords in any language is the most precise method to discover what is available in a specific language.

To utilise the AGRIS multilingual search engine visit: https://agris.fao.org/.

To learn more about AGRIS, utilise the short, engaging online course available here: https://www.fao.org/agris/the-international-system-for-agricultural-science-and-technology/#/. More information can also be found at https://www.fao.org/agris/.  

AGROVOC is a multilingual and controlled vocabulary designed to cover concepts and terminology under FAO's areas of interest. It is a Digital Public Good on agriculture and related topics, and its highest impact is through facilitating the access and visibility of data across domains available in up to 42 languages.

Recently, FAO has fully translated AGROVOC Thesaurus into Spanish. This enhancement responds to user needs and promotes using semantic tools, such as AGROVOC, to strengthen linguistic coverage. With this update, new terms proposed by users in all available languages will be evaluated more quickly by the AGROVOC editorial community. This continuous review ensures that AGROVOC remains a dynamic tool, reflecting the latest trends and discoveries in the agricultural field.

To utilise the AGROVOC multilingual thesaurus visit: https://agrovoc.fao.org/browse/agrovoc/en/  

To learn more about AGROVOC visit https://www.fao.org/agrovoc/.