International Conference
"Agricultural Knowledge Exchange in the Russian Language"

June 2-3, 2010
Moscow, Russian Federation

Organizers:

• Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO UN)
• Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (RSAU-MTAA)
• Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL) of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Venue:

Address: 49 Timiryazevskaya St., Moscow, 127550 Russian Federation
Phone: +7 495 9764100
Fax: :+7 495 9762910
E-mail: inter@timacad.ru
Web: http://www.timacad.ru/conf_news/fao.php

Purpose and objectives:

The purpose of the Conference was to provide an international forum for the presentation of the long-term work of Russian-speaking experts and their partners in the sphere of agricultural education, science and practice, and to discuss developments in creation, storage, and exchange of agricultural information and knowledge in the Russian language. The Conference offered a platform for discussion, analysis and review of current situation and future actions in the field of agricultural knowledge exchange. The objective was to achieve a better understanding of global and national constraints, particularly in countries marginalised from the mainstream West European communities. The Conference also aimed to encourage and enhance the development of international co-operation in the important field of organization of access to the Russian-language agricultural information resources and their dissemination. The Conference introduced the new international initiative on Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD), and promoted action to strengthen collaboration among agricultural institutions in Russian-speaking countries towards making research information more publicly accessible.

Results:

Participants of the Conference were unanimous in appraisement of necessity and importance of information resources in the Russian language for scientific work and education not only in Russian Federation, but also in the CIS countries and some foreign countries. There was proved the expediency of regular scientific meetings for knowledge exchange in advocacy of scientific knowledge and information technologies, and their extensive accessibility. There were analysed some ways of creation of common information space in the Russian language, as a part of the global world information space.

In the capacity of one of the possible tools and starting position for creation of such kind information space it was proposed to develop the union electronic catalogue of scientific agricultural libraries of the agro-industrial complex of the Russian Federation with the subsequent participation of scientific agricultural libraries of the CIS countries. Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL) of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences could become the focal library developing the union catalogue using the linguistic means developed by CSAL’s specialists and Russian version of AGROVOC thesaurus the creation of which is accomplishing by CSAL with financial support from the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and the methodological support of FAO.

In course of the Conference there was noted the necessity of development of a joint commercial information project of CIS countries, analogous to the leading world information products developed by the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International (CABI), International Food Information Service (IFIS), etc.

Participants came to a decision of possible foundation and issuing of a corporative international scientific electronic Russian-language journal, which could promote mending of real contacts between young scientists, post-graduate students and candidates for a master's degree of the CIS countries.

There was encouraged an idea of creation of a network university for the system of continuing education of faculty of agricultural higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation and the CIS countries in the Russian language with the further organization of education in Master's degree programmes on the basis of the Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (RSAU-MTAA). FAO representatives agreed to give consideration of the mentioned above topic with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, and in case of its appreciation, possible FAO’s support.

There was considered the possibility of creation of a special united system of electronic training courses in the Russian language, which are taught in higher educational institutions of the CIS countries, and possibilities of their open access presentation.

There was noted the necessity of creation and support of the Russian-language web-site covering the problems of sustainable rural development.

All participants proved the importance and applicability of the CIS countries participation in FAO projects and programmes: Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD), International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology (AGRIS), AgroWeb, European System of Cooperative Research Networks in Agriculture (ESCORENA), AGLINET, and others, which make it possible to integrate the Russian-language resources into the world information space.