The volume of agricultural information and knowledge is growing constantly: every year, FAO produces a vast amount of data and information and processes it into 'useable' knowledge.

One primary goal of KCE is to produce and maintain tools for information and knowledge management that facilitate not only the gathering and production of information but also its availability and accessibility. This requires effective methods, guidelines and procedures to identify, acquire, manage and exploit information and knowledge in the correct manner.

The use of metadata for indexing electronic as well as non-electronic information resources for resource discovery in a networked environment is increasing all over the world. Metadata facilitate comprehensive search results from different databases and information repositories.

The Agricultural Metadata Standards Initiative (AgMES) and the Agricultural Ontology Service (AOS) are two internationally-recognized initiatives aimed at improving standards globally in which KCE takes an active role.

Vocabulary systems to assist in indexing and classifying information such as the AGROVOC multilingual thesaurus, the multilingual FAO glossary and FAOTERM have been developed by FAO and are being constantly updated to reflect the evolving nature of the agriculture and development sectors.

The Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK) is an e-learning programme developed by FAO and Partners to train individuals in the effective management of agricultural information including the application of standards and norms. The International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology (AGRIS) promotes standardization through its members who index references, data and full-text information for the AGRIS database using a predefined set of standards.

KCE is participating in international standardizing efforts (Dublin Core Initiative - a collaboration with other UN agencies, the National Agricultural Library (NAL) part of the US Department of Agriculture, CAB International and other information providers in the area of agriculture) to make information more easily accessible through the Internet.

KCE is actively involved in providing support to member countries for effective data exchange with FAO, and more generally, support to standardization efforts. In this respect, FAO's corporate information retrieval systems, such as the WAICENT Information Finder, the FAO Corporate Document Repository and the FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System, have the capacity to export data in XML using standardized document type definitions (DTDs) to facilitate data exchange and reuse of information.

Similarly, KCE has developed procedures and standards for digitization and release of information in electronic form which are currently used in the preparation of electronic versions of FAO publications. These procedures and standards are an integral part of the capacity building activities of KCE in member countries.