The FAO AGRIS Open Data Set (ODS) has emerged as a cornerstone of open knowledge sharing in the agricultural and food sciences. Developed and maintained by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the FAO AGRIS ODS reflects a strong commitment to making agricultural science more accessible, reusable, and impactful globally.

What is the FAO AGRIS Open Data Set?

The FAO AGRIS Open Data Set (ODS) encompasses almost half of the records in FAO AGRIS, offering metadata and links to full texts on food and agriculture topics. Released under a CC BY 4.0 license, the ODS fosters the reuse of research outputs and accelerates progress toward key Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those stewarded by FAO.

Its metadata is prepared to exacting FAIR standards—using Dublin Core and W3C Data Catalog schemas—so that every record is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Contributions arrive via OAI-PMH or email, are rigorously cleaned and standardized, and then made available to a global network of institutions in over 150 countries.

The complete ODS can be downloaded as an XML file.

Benefits for Data Providers

Contributing to the FAO AGRIS ODS offers institutions a range of strategic benefits. By sharing metadata, organizations significantly increase the global visibility of their scientific outputs while retaining clear attribution of data provenance, ensuring proper recognition for every contribution.

Participation also embeds institutions in an open-knowledge ecosystem, where their metadata can be integrated with other datasets to support advanced, data-driven research, ranging from machine-learning applications to linked-data initiatives. Importantly, joining the FAO AGRIS ODS is entirely voluntary, and institutions may opt in to share their metadata at any time and may similarly choose to withdraw if circumstances change.

Why Open Data Matters in Agriculture

Open data can transform agriculture by breaking down information silos and enabling stakeholders like smallholder farmers to multinational agribusinesses, to make faster, more informed decisions. When datasets are openly licensed and machine-readable, users can combine, for example, climate models with soil health records to design climate-resilient cropping systems, or policymakers can overlay pest-outbreak data with distribution networks to preempt food shortages. Open data also democratizes knowledge: extension officers in remote regions can download localized best-practice guides straight from a global repository and use them offline.

Open agricultural data, such as FAO AGRIS ODS, underpins productivity gains, environmental stewardship, and equitable food security, making it a cornerstone for sustainable development.