Agriculture & Vetrinary Resources

AGBIOS

This company Web site offers public policy, regulatory and risk assessment information pertaining to agricultural biotechnology. Amongst the resources it offers are two databases: Biotech Crop Database and Bibliography Database. The Biotech Crop Database provides safety information about genetically engineered plants or plants with "novel traits" resulting from "accelerated mutagenesis or plant breeding." Entries include the scientific and common name of the plant, trait, trait introduction method, proposed use, the company that produced it, a summary of regulatory approvals (covers Canada, Mexico and the United States) and detailed description. Bibliography Database contains citations (some full-text) to literature on "the environmental, human food, and livestock feed safety of GM [genetically modified] crops."

AgEcon Search

Maintained by the University of Minnesota, AgEcon Search contains full text copies of scholarly research in agricultural economics, including agribusiness, food supply, natural resource economics, environmental economics, policy issues, agricultural trade, and economic development. Search by author, title, keyword, institution or journal to find bibliographic information about papers in the database. Each record includes a link to the paper in PDF as well as author contact information. If you click the What's New link in the menu, you will receive a list of papers recently added to the database.

AGRICOLA

The National Agricultural Library provides access to its catalog of books and other resources as well as its articles database. The articles database contains bibliographic information about articles, book chapters, reports and other materials published since 1982. A relatively new feature enables searching both the book and articles database simultaneously. You can search by keyword, subject, title, author or other criteria. You can also browse the contents of both databases by title, subject, author or other criteria.

Agricultural Network Information Center (AgNIC)

The National Agricultural Library (NAL), land-grant universities and other agricultural organizations partner to provide this Web site on resources and news pertaining to agriculture and veterinary medicine. It covers a wide range of veterinary and environmental science topics. Use it to find high quality resources, as well as the law pertaining to agricultural issues.

AGRIS

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) offers this database of bibliographic information about world literature pertaining to agricultural issues. The current database covers 1996 to present. For older articles, access the Archive (1975-1995). I recommend use of the site's thesaurus -- Agrovoc -- prior to initiating a search. It will reveal how your keywords are indexed (e.g., search "Johne's disease" as "paratuberculosis").

CDMS Labels and MSDSs

CDMS, Inc. (Crop Data Management Systems, Inc.) offers product labels and MSDS (material safety data sheets) from over 80 manufacturers. You can browse the list of manufacturers or search by product or brand name.

ComBase

Developed by scientists with the U.S. Agricultural Research Service and the United Kingdom's Institute of Food Research, ComBase provides information on how pathogenic bacteria respond to different environmental conditions in food. Search by environmental condition, type of organism and type of food to find information describing the conditions under which the food became contaminated. The description includes published source information.

County of Sacramento (California) Food Safety Inspections

The County of Sacramento, California, offers a food safety inspections database. Search by facility name or location to find the inspection reports. The database supports partial name searching. Information provided includes the name and address of the food facility, identification of any major violations, date of the last inspection or re-inspection and the period of closure (if applicable.) In addition, the food inspection report itself is available (in Adobe Acrobat format) for most inspections since July 1, 2002.

Current Research Information System (CRIS)

Search the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) database of recently completed research projects in agriculture, food and nutrition, and forestry. An assisted search feature facilitates limiting criteria to one or more of the many database fields. For example, enter "johne's disease" (without quotations) as a keyword search and then limit results to those dealing with "animal health." The database returns information about the research, including project time period, investigator, performing institution, objectives, approach, and a helpful non-technical summary.

EquiSearch.com

Now owned by PRIMEDIA, EquiSearch serves as the online partner for its equine magazines -- EQUUS, Dressage Today, Practical Horseman, Horse & Rider, Arabian Horse World, Discover Horses at the Kentucky Horse Park, Everything for Horse & Rider and Growing Up With Horses. You will find news, articles and online forums. A keyword search feature helps you find articles. A weekly electronic newsletter is also available.

FAOSTAT

A statistical database of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT covers topics such as production, trade, land use, population, fertilizer and pesticides, exports and more. To begin, select a broad category--agriculture, nutrition, fisheries, forestry or food quality control. Then choose one of the data collections. The next screen to appear contains options for the type of statistical data you desire. You can, for example, discover the number of live animal stocks (by type of animal) in specific countries or regions.

FOI Online

FOI Services, Inc., a document retrieval company specializing in the retrieval of Food & Drug Administration (FDA) documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), offers a searchable library of over 150,000 documents it has collected since its inception during 1975. Search the library for free. Purchase individual documents, many of which are available online. To find FOIA documents pertinent to specific companies, query the company name omitting inc, co, ltd, etc. Database coverage includes documents pertaining to drugs, devices, food, veterinary medicine, and biologics, guidelines, inspection reports, and Espicom Market Research Reports.

The Green Book

Published from information in a database maintained under a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Green Book provides information about approved animal drugs. Chapters cover brand names and NADA numbers, active ingredients, patent information, exclusivity periods, products hearing notice, voluntary withdrawals, suitability petition actions and monthly updates. The Center for Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Polytechnic Institute provides search access to the monthly updates as well as other relevant databases (animal drug products, suitability petitions).

Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Publications

The University of Nebraska Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources provides its catalog of more than 800 publications. The catalog gives bibliographic information, including in some cases extensive summaries. You cannot search it by keyword or other criteria. Rather, you browse the catalog by categories.

Integrated Pest Management Literature Search Service

Pennsylvania State University offers a database of annotated bibliographic citations to journal articles, book excerpts, conference proceedings, and research reports about pests. For the broadest possible query, use the Advanced Search button and specify "all non-indexed fields." This qualifier appears to query the full-text of the bibliographic record, including indexed fields.

Intute: Health and Life Sciences

Veterinary medicine, brought to you by a national team of subject specialists
from universities across the UK.

Marketplace for the Mind

Created by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Marketplace for the Mind provides agricultural education materials as well as information about the state's agriculture and agribusiness. Follow the link for "In the News" to find articles and reference materials about current issues like the West Nile Virus, rabies, Johne's Disease and more. Search the Agricultural Resource Library to find educational materials on animal, plant and food science, agricultural mechanics, agricultural business and environmental agriculture, including brochures, books, CDs, fact sheets and other information. The records offer bibliographic information as well as reading levels, languages, reproduction information, and online sales availability.

Merck Veterinary Manual

Merck & Co., Inc. makes available its reference source for animal care information. Browse or search the manual by disease name, With respect to diseases, the manual contains information about etiology and pathogenesis, diagnosis, control, and more. It also provides information about prenatal management, common diseases, and lameness in animals. Useful features include search term highlighting, an index, and an abbreviation guide.

National Animal Health Information System, The

Animal Health Australia maintains this database of animal health data, which it collects from commonwealth, state and territory governments, as well as industry groups and other interest organizations. The provides information about animal diseases, epidemiology, Australian regulations, control measures and key references. Search by disease or condition (select from pre-established terms) to find a description of the disease, which includes its distribution worldwide, history in Australia, epidemiology, clinical signs, pathology, diagnosis and prevention and control.

National Animal Identification System

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is a national program intended to identify specific animals in the United States and record their movement over their lifespans. It is being developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and State agencies, in cooperation with industry, to enable 48-hour traceback of the movements of any diseased or exposed animal.

National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information

Created by Congress during 1987 and affiliated with the National Agricultural Library, the Center conducts legal research into critical issues facing agriculture and food today. It also publishes scholarly articles, notes, case summaries and other materials. The Web site provides summaries of agriculture-related judicial decisions and regulatory changes, articles on a variety of agricultural law issues, current USDA decisions and an extensive guide on finding agricultural law on the Internet.

NewCROP

Sponsored by the Center for New Crops & Plant Products at Purdue University, NewCROP offers several utilities for finding information about crop plants. Use CropINDEX provides scientific and common names for crops as well as links to full-text and bibliographic resources where you can find information about specific crops. CropSEARCH lets you query the online resources by keyword. Famine Foods Database provides information about plants that usually are not considered crops, but are consumed in times of famine. Other site utilities include a crop map, a crop expert directory, a list of crop reference sources, and more.

Nutrition.gov

Multiple federal agencies join to offer this portal to their nutrition-related information. The site provides access to federal government information on nutrition, healthy eating, physical activity, and food safety.

PECAD News Feeds

The Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division (PECAD) of the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service provides three XML-based feeds for information pertaining to production of agricultural. The feeds cover current and older top stories, as well as world agricultural production. They consist of linked headlines.

Plants Database

The National Plant Data Center provides this database containing information about plants. Search by common name, scientific name or symbol to find a plants profile, which contains at least some of the following information: plant scientific name, common name, symbol, group, family, growth habit, duration and U.S. nativity. Additional features include plant classification reports, which show the scientific kingdom and plant source and reference materials, which provide bibliographic information about source materials for the information in the database as well citations to references for more information about the plant entered.

Science.gov

This site serves as a portal to scientific and technical information and databases available from U.S. government agencies. Browse the collection of resources by subject or search multiple databases simultaneously. Topics include agriculture, veterinary medicine, biology, computers, energy, environment, health and medicine, math, and more.

Scirus

2 April 2001. Elsevier offers this search engine devoted to finding scientific information. Powered by FAST (alltheweb.com), Scirus collects, indexes, and retrieves information pertaining to agricultural and biological sciences, biosciences, chemistry, Earth and planetary sciences, environmental sciences, life sciences, medicine, pharmacology, social and behavioral sciences, and more.

Using the simple search feature on the home page, searchers may enter a phrase, or string several words together with the Boolean "and," and limit the search to a particular field of science. The advanced search page offers more options including the ability to limit a query so that it retrieves articles only. From the results list, searchers also may select "more like this result" to retrieve items similar to one on the hit list.

Because the engine also indexes information from fee-based subscription services, searchers will find peer-reviewed journal articles. Retrieving these articles (called Membership Sources) requires a subscription to Science Direct.

TheHorse.com

The Horse magazine offers news, commentary and peer-reviewed articles on equine health care. Browse an index (called Topic Search) of articles by subject or conduct a keyword search. Also find a weekly electronic newsletter that contains news on diseases, veterinary research, health events, and in-depth articles on common equine health conditions and what you can do to recognize, avoid, or treat them.

U.S. Export Sales Report

The Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA) offers weekly export sales data "as a timely early warning system on the possible impact of agricultural obligations on U.S. supplies and prices." In addition to the complete report, the site offers highlights, summary activity, and a cotton summary as well as export sales reporting regulations, an export performance indicator, and individual commodity reports.

U.S. Supplier List

FASOnline, a Web site of the Foreign Agricultural Service, which is part of U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides a database of qualified U.S. suppliers of food, farm, seafood and forest products to foreign buyers. Search by product or company to find detailed contact information. Company name queries can be conducted only from the text search box, which appears at the bottom of the page. The information provided includes the name of the company, its address, phone, contact, fax, email, Web site, D&B number, annual sales, number of employees, type of firm, products exported, and more.

USDA Economics and Statistics System

The Mann Library at Cornell University provides a single interface for searching reports and datasets from the economic agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The database is international in scope and covers topics like farm sector economics, field crops, food, land, water and conservation, livestock, dairy and poultry, trade issues and more. Search by keyword to find reports or datasets issued by the Economic Research Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service and World Agricultural Outlook Board.

USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference

The Department of Agriculture makes available information about nutrients in foods. Enter the name of a food to find the proximates (water, energy, protein, sugar, etc.), minerals, vitamins and lipids its contains. Depending on the food, you can based a report on various measurements, including grams, a cup, a fluid ounce, a quart, serving, etc.

Virginia Department of Health Restaurant Inspection Website

Virginia Department of Health provides a link page for finding inspection reports pertaining to restaurants, fast food operations, delis, cafeterias, and other types of food service establishments inspected by local health departments. First, select the relevant county from the left-hand menu. Then drill down the alphabet to find the food service of interest.

Water Quality Information Center

The Water Quality Information Center at the National Agricultural Library offers several databases and resources pertaining to water and agriculture. Find, for example, the Database of Online Documents Covering Water and Agriculture (electronic publications of several federal agencies), AgNIC (Internet-accessible resources selected by the National Agricultural Library), Selected Water-Resources Abstracts (abstracts of about 10,000 water resources published since 1977), Water Expert Directory (water professionals), and more.

Why Files, The

Subtitled "Science Behind the News," this site sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, explains scientific facts and theories behind historical and current events in the news. What caused the Edmund Fitzgerald to sink in the Great Lakes? Is such a tragedy likely to happen again? What are scientists learning about the source and fate of new infections (HIV, Ebola, West Nile, Lyme)? Are genetically altered foods safe? To find these articles, the site offers a subject index and keyword search feature.

Wildlife and Contaminants Online

Formerly a single database sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey and entitled Contaminant Exposure and Effects (CEETV), this resource now comprises the database and two utilities. CEETV provides information about contaminant exposure and effects for terrestrial vertebrates (birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles) that reside in estuarine and coastal habitats along the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, Alaskan and Hawaiian coastal regions. A second component of the site offers information about biological and ecotoxicological characteristics of birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians. Another section lets you rank terrestrial vertebrates by their susceptibility to specific contaminants.

World Bird Database

The database contains information about bird species, including taxonomy, identification, range, population, ecology, threats, conservation and more. Compiled by BirdLife International, a global alliance of conservation organizations, it also provides information about Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs). To begin searching, select an option from the left-hand menu (and not the search box at the top of the page).

Wyoming Feed and Fertilizer Registration Data

The Wyoming Department Of Agriculture offers two databases for finding feed and fertilizer products and the companies that register them for sale. Search by full or partial company or brand name to find the company name, address, permit number and product list. The product list provides the brand name and number as well as the permit expiration date.