The Global Agricultural Research Archive from CABI
Welcome to the Global Agricultural Research Archive (GARA), the initiative that aims to archive agricultural knowledge on behalf of developing countries around the world. This database currently contains nearly 8,000 full text records from our institutional partners in Malawi, Pakistan, Myanmar and the Philippines, from the 2008 IAALD conference on agricultural information and IT, from RUFORUM and now from CTA.
For over 35 years, CTA effectively demonstrated how agricultural innovation can be documented, shared and scaled up to achieve significant improvements in incomes, productivity and food security. CTA brokered successful partnerships to foster sustainable agricultural transformation, in particular for the smallholder farmers that are the backbone of many African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) economies. With the end of the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the ACP Group of States, the financial and legal framework that supported CTA expired at the end of 2020. As its final focus, CTA created synergies with partners and interested funders to support the continuation of its work. Although CTA as an institution has ceased to exist, a rich portfolio of valuable assets remains, including knowledge products, databases and extensive networks. These assets were transferred to CABI to be made available in perpetuity and can now be accessed through GARA. For further information on CTA see: https://www.cta.int/en/CTALegacy
In 2013, we began working with RUFORUM. The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a consortium of 30 universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, was established in 2004. RUFORUM’s Mission is to strengthen the capacities of universities to foster innovations responsive to demands of small-holder farmers through the training of high quality researchers, the output of impact-oriented research, and the maintenance of collaborative working relations among researchers, farmers, national agricultural research institutions, and governments. In support of this Mission, GARA now hosts the full text of a selection of RUFORUM publications and staff papers.
In GARA you can search for journal articles, books, and reports on subjects ranging from crop science to fish farming. For more information see the 'About Full Text' button in the top menu bar or explore the site using the tabs above, the search function or Smart searches examples.
We hope you find the site useful, please let us know what you think, we welcome your feedback. Send any comments to the Editorial Team at: globalarchive@cabi.org .
About the Global Agricultural Research Archive (GARA)
This resource has been set up to digitally capture and create an agricultural knowledge archive on behalf of developing countries around the world. The aim of the project is to preserve, disseminate and apply this valuable material and the knowledge it contains, for the benefit of current researchers and generations to come. The archive will be centrally managed and maintained to enable preservation and disaster recovery and the long term protection of knowledge which might again become inaccessible.
Why have we developed GARA?
Concern about food security and climate change is at an all time high and it is widely accepted that the most vulnerable communities in the tropical of the developing world will be hit hardest. There is much that we already know at local and national levels that could immediately improve yields and reduce losses if effectively dissimated and implemented. However, in developing countries, much of the information is not readily accessible in a format that allows it to be shared within countries, let alone across regions.
CABI is helping solve this problem by creating a network of agricultural information for the world's researchers to share through our GARA initiative.
For developing countries information this will mean
improved information sharing across borders
agricultural knowledge can become integrated into the burgeoning knowledge economy similarly to that of developed countries
local knowledge will become preserved for future local use
In support of CIARD
CABI is a partner of CIARD (Coherance in Information for Agricultural Research for Development), an initiative working to make agricultural research information and knowledge truly accessible to all. Our GARA resource supports this through its mandate to make developing countries research open access to everyone.
Benefits of accessing the GARA resource
- strengthen teaching and research
- strengthen extension services and the knowledge of farmers
- provide a higher profile of this knowledge to the global community
- bring prestige and recognition of expertise and contribution to the global knowledge base
- lead to better agricultural science based policies
- release the knowledge from the past
- provide baseline information on issues such as loss of biodiversity, climate change, food security, traditional food crops and indigenous breeds
- increase citation of researchers and academics based in developing countries
- reduce duplication of research effort
- impact positively on the whole national agricultural system and particularly on farmer livelihoods