Recent Advances In Agricultural Information Dissemination: Applicability Of Agora And Teeal Initiatives To Developing Countries

Abstract

The world is gradually actualizing the Global Village concept, which was an abstract and imagination some years back. The concern with even development has made many developed countries and international agencies to design programmes of assistance to less developed countries in all human endeavours. Knowing the importance of food production, supply and sufficiency at every stage of economic development, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) initiated various programmes of assistance to low income countries in order to transform their peasant agricultural practices to mechanized ventures. In line with the information and communication technology (ICT) age the initiatives of Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) and The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) were developed by the FAO in collaboration with Cornel University of the United Kingdom to enable agricultural scientists and practitioners have unlimited access to over 500 journals on agriculture and related disciplines. Against this background, the article examines the concept of AGORA/TEEAL, the merits of electronic referencing, the limitations imposed on users in low income countries and recommended measures for improvement to enabled the achievement of the goals and objectives of the initiatives.


Keywords: Advances, Information, Developing, AGORA, TEEAL

JORIND Vol. 6 (1) 2008: pp. 26-26