The FAO Knowledge Repository is FAO's official repository for all its publications, past and present. Fully free and open access, it promotes the unhindered flow of knowledge as it amplifies the Organization’s scientific and technical impact.
In 1998, FAO broke new ground by offering access to all digital versions of its publications. Twenty-five years and several transformations later, the FAO Knowledge Repository is the latest incarnation of that public-minded vision. It is today the authoritative point of access to FAO's expertise.
Content
The FAO Knowledge Repository contains tens of thousands of publications; annual reports; technical papers; policy briefs; advocacy documents; project reports; meeting documents; grey literature; and other information and communication material.
The content is organized through several collections:
- Knowledge products (including flagship publications)
- Technical documents & project reports
- Meeting documents
- Newsletters & flyers
- Posters, presentations & infographics
- Library historical collections (coming soon)
FAO ensures its digital publications are easily discoverable and accessible by:
- providing accurate and curated metadata in the six FAO languages about all publications;
- producing a variety of publication formats (PDF, HTML, ePub, Mobi, print-on-demand) to meet different user needs;
- offering user-friendly search and browse functions based on topics, keywords, publication types, language and other metadata fields;
- sharing any associated multimedia files (videos, podcasts, datasets) along with the publication; and
- generating reliable, automated publication metrics of use to stakeholders.
The FAO Knowledge Repository is constantly updated with fresh content. The platform (based on DSpace) is regularly enhanced with new features to improve access to FAO publications.
Open access
FAO encourages the use, reproduction and dissemination of all the information it produces. In line with its mandate, FAO adopted an open access policy in 2018, which was extended to CC-BY-4.0 in January 2025.
The policy requires that FAO publications be published under Creative Commons licenses, which provide clear language and a framework for reuse, according to international standards.
In this way, FAO ensures immediate, irrevocable and free access to all information products available in the FAO Knowledge Repository.
Metrics
The homepage of the FAO Knowledge Repository shows the top trending publications for the prior seven days, based on views and downloads combined. Top downloads are shown by publication title and by country under the “Statistics” option in the main menu.
To see statistics for a specific publication, navigate to the publication’s preview page. In the right column a “statlet” displays the number of views and number of downloads. It is possible to see the monthly breakdown of views and downloads by mousing over the bar chart.
Selected publications in the “Knowledge products” community will also display an Altmetrics badge, or “donut”, above the statlet. This is a visual summary of overall attention to the publication, including the number of mentions or citations in blogs, news outlets, X, policy sources, Mendeley and more. By clicking on the "donut”, users can see more details of the publication’s reach and impact, including some demographics. From this page, users can sign up to be alerted via email when a publication of interest is shared.
To see more detailed statistical information, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button “Show statistical information”. Two figures will appear that display “Item views and downloads per month” and “Top downloads and views by country”.
Note that the repository contains statistical data as of 24 April 2024, the date the repository was launched on its current platform. To request historical statistics for a specific publication, please contact knowledge-repository@fao.org.
Tips for searching
The FAO Knowledge Repository offers a free text search, so users can search for publications by subject matter, title or date.
By subject matter
• Searching milk production or milk AND production will return results with both these words in them.
• Searching legumes OR rice will return results with either of these words in them.
• Searching crops NOT pulses will return results with crops but not including pulses.
• Searching “water use efficiency” (in quotes) will return results with the exact phrase water use efficiency in them.
• Searching agrifood policy* will return results including agrifood and any word starting with policy (such as policymaker, policymaking).
• Searching agr?food will return results including the words agrifood, agrofood, agrgfood and others.
By title
• Searching dc.title:date palm will only return results where the title of the publication includes date palm.
• Searching dc.title:date palm AND dc.description.abstract:olives will only return results where the title of the publication includes date palm and the abstract contains the word olives.
Users can then further narrow down the results by using the advanced search filters on the lefthand side of the results page, which include year of publication, language of publication, AGROVOC keywords, series title, and meeting title. The advanced search filters use an AND query, meaning that if – for example – under the Keywords filter you choose Governing Bodies and Plant genetic resources, it will return results with both these keywords marked.
Tips for browsing
The FAO Knowledge Repository offers a browse functionality, where users can browse to find publications by title, year of publication or job number.
By title
Type the FIRST letters of the publication name in the browse bar to find the exact title you are looking for. For example, if you type fisheries it will find publications that have Fisheries as the FIRST word of the title. If the publication begins with The, you will need to type this word, e.g. The fisheries….
By year
Choose the year from the drop-down menu. The results will display in chronological order from most recent to least recent within that year.
By job number
The job numbers are displayed in alphabetical and chronological order. Type the entire job number, or the first part of the job number. For example, if you type CB, it will return results for all job numbers starting with CB. If you type CB25, it will return results for all job numbers starting with CB25. If you type CB2550, it will return all language versions of that job number. If you type CB2550FR, it will return the specific publication with that job number.
Contact information
The FAO Knowledge Repository is managed by the Publications and Library Branch, in the Office of Communications of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
For more information: knowledge-repository@fao.org