FAO expands free public access to agrifood knowledge through collaboration on Wikipedia

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia UK to expand public access to reliable information on food, agriculture and related topics.

The agreement provides a framework for collaboration with Wikimedia UK, the largest English-language Wikimedia chapter, and Wikimedia Sverige, a lead member of the Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub. Based in the UK and Sweden respectively, the two non-profit organizations support free access to knowledge through Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata as part of the global Wikimedia movement.

“Through its collaboration with Wikimedia partners, FAO is bringing its high-quality, open-access knowledge to widely used platforms, strengthening information integrity while reaching global audiences through a community of volunteer editors and multilingual content,” said Yasmina Bouziane, Director of the FAO Office of Communications.

At its core the partnership, which builds on an existing informal collaboration that was showcased at Expo 2025 as a best practice, is about sharing knowledge more effectively. FAO produces around 3000 publications every year, containing information and data on subjects such as food security, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and nutrition. Since 2024 FAO has made most of this content Open Access, available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence, meaning that anyone can access and share it, providing they attribute the source.

Taking Open Access a step further, the joint work represents a concrete endeavour to improve the presence of FAO’s authoritative, evidence-based content on one of the world’s most widely consulted platforms, while supporting Wikipedia’s efforts to provide well-sourced, verified information.

The agreement seeks not only to contribute open text, images and data to the platform, but also to engage with the wider Wikimedia community, strengthen understanding of how the platforms work and support sharing of knowledge across the 300+ languages represented in Wikipedia.

Contributing to information integrity and a healthy information ecosystem

In today’s digital environment, access to reliable information is increasingly important. Open platforms such as Wikipedia play a central role in how knowledge is accessed and shared globally, including as a source for many digital tools and emerging technologies. In the context of artificial intelligence, where large volumes of information are drawn from open sources, the availability of accurate, human-curated content is essential to ensure quality and trust.

The agreement places FAO as one of the first United Nations agencies to formalize collaboration with Wikimedia chapters, marking an important step in strengthening the connection between the UN system and open knowledge platforms. Through this partnership, FAO is taking a leading role in efforts to ensure that reliable, verified information is available in the places that people – and the digital tools that they use – search for it.

The initiative reflects FAO’s commitment to open access and its mandate to collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate information on food and agriculture.

The agreement will be implemented over an initial five-year period, supporting activities globally. Its signature on World Book and Copyright Day further emphasizes the value of making knowledge more accessible and widely shared.