Because of the costs of creating and publishing research, many scholarly resources (such as journals) require a paid subscription to access. 

Open access is the practice by which research is distributed free of cost or other access barriers. There has been a ongoing trend of making research materials open access. Although most scholarly journals still exist behind a pay-wall, many have become open access. 

Open access research publications can vary greatly regarding their credibility and the strength of the research they publish. It is the intention that the list below include only true peer-reviewed, credible, and open-access publications. That said, the publications below are not necessarily among the best research publications in their field, but rather the best open-access research publications in that field. 

Want to learn more about how you can evaluate scientific resources? Take a look at the WSU Extensions' publication Scientific Literacy for the Citizen Scientist.

There are various open databases that will help you find scholarly research. Some of these databases provide free full-text (open access) articles while others provide only bibliographic citations for articles (which you may not be able to access without being affiliated with a research institution). It is worth noting that you may be able to get some articles that are behind a paywall through your local public or academic library via their interlibrary loan system.

Agriculture Focused (Open Access) Scholarly Research Databases 

Government Resources & Academic Resources 

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Agriculture Library (NAL) Resources

The NAL provides several databases that focus on different types of resources. This includes open access scholarly articles, data sets, bibliographic citations, and more. Here is a list of those databases (link to all NAL databases). You can search across all databases using the USDA SEARCH interface (link to NAL SEARCH). You can also limit your search to a specific database by using the dropdown menu near the NAL search bar (link to an image demonstrating dropdown menu).

United Nations' International System for Agricultural Science and Technology Food and Agriculture Organization (AGRIS FAO)

AGRIS FAO (link to AGRIS FAO) indexes journal articles, grey literature, books, and more. This includes many full-text resources across various languages and locations.

Washington State University Open-Access Search.

The WSU Libraries (link to WSU search) allow anyone to use our catalog to search for bibliographic citations and full-text open access research. To find full-text open access limit your search results to "Open Access" under the "Availability" option (link to image demonstrating limiting results). 

Non-Government Resources 

The Biodiversity Heritage Library

The BHL (link to BHL) is a large consortium of agriculture, natural history, botanical, etc. libraries that have digitized and extensive amount of resources scholarly research, monographs, field, guides, and more with the purpose of making such materials open access.

HathiTrust

HathiTrust (link to HathiTrust) is a nonprofit digital library that preserves and provides access to millions of digitized books, journals, and other texts from major research libraries around the world. Many of these resources are open-access and full text. Much of these resources are more historical in scope. 

• www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

•  that cooperate to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global Òbiodiversity commons.Ó The BHL consortium works with the international taxonomic community, rights holders, and other interested parties to ensure that this biodiversity heritage is made available to a global audience through open access principles. The BHL has digitized millions of pages of taxonomic literature, representing nearly 100,000 titles and over 160,000 volumes.

  The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global Òbiodiversity commons.Ó The BHL consortium works with the international taxonomic community, rights holders, and other interested parties to ensure that this biodiversity heritage is made available to a global audience through open access principles. The BHL has digitized millions of pages of taxonomic literature, representing nearly 100,000 titles and over 160,000 volumes.

There are many more NAL resources than those listed below. For a complete list of those resources, take a look at this link.

Note: When searching NAL resources you can choose from the following databases by utilizing the dropdown menu (typically to the right of the search box). Here's a link to an image demonstrating that.

NAL SEARCH (link to database) - Searches across all of the NAL's resources (listed below). You can limit results to show "open access" options via the limiters (typically on the left side of the screen after searching).

PubAg (link to database) - Provides full-text articles and citations from peer-reviewed articles in the agricultural sciences.

AGRICOLA (link to database) - Provides citations only across several large agricultural databases (e.g. indexed journal articles and the NAL catalog entries).

Ag Data Commons - Provides open data sets relevant to agricultural research.

See also:

• USDA: National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) - NASS conducts hundreds of surveys every year and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Production and supplies of food and fiber, prices paid and received by farmers, farm labor and wages, farm finances, chemical use, and changes in the demographics of U.S. producers are only a few examples. Also see the USDA Open Data Catalog

• USDA: Washington Agricultural Statistics Service - Provides various data sets and statistics as part of the USDA Northwest Regional Field Office.

• Data.gov - The large government data repository.  Provides open data from the federal to the local level across a wide range of topics from agriculture, consumer, manufacturing, and more. 

• US Census Information - Provides a wide range of historic demographic information.

Multidisciplinary (Open Access) Agriculture Databases and Resources

Google Scholar - Journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and more from across many disciplines. Not all resources are open-access but many are.

Directory of Open Access Journals - Provides a comprehensive list of open access, peer reviewed, journals. Journals can be sorted by discipline. 

SJR List of Open Access Journals - SCImago Journal Rank lists scholarly journals across disciplines. The list allows you to filter results by discipline and to search for only open access journals. Clicking on the journal name will provide a link to the journal website.

The journals listed below are among the top open access journals in their fields. 

Agriculture and Horticulture (General)

California agriculture - Open access from 1946.

Horticulture research - Open access from 2014.

Scientia agricola - Open access from 1992.

Sustainability - Open access from 2009.

Animal Sciences

Animals - Open access from 2011.

Genetics selection evolution - Open access from 1989.

Journal of animal science and biotechnology - Open access from 2012. 

Journal of applied animal research - Open access from 2016.

Crop & Soil Sciences 

Crop breeding and applied biotechnology - Open access from 2001.

Plant production science - Open access from 2003.

Entomology and Pest Management

Insects - Open access from 2011.

Journal of insect science - Open access from 2001.

Journal of integrated pest management -  Open access from 2010.

Ecology & Forestry

Biogeosciences - Open access from 2004.

Ecology and evolution - Open access from 2011.

Ecology and society - Open access from 2004.

Ecosphere - Open access from 2010.

Environmental research letters - Open access from 2006.

Fire ecology - Open access from 2005. 

Forest ecosystems - Open access from 2014.

Forests - Open access from 2010.

iForest-Biogeosciences and forestry - Open access from 2008.

Wildlife biology - Open access from 2014.

Food Sciences

Food and agricultural immunology - Open access from 2017.

Food and nutrition research - Open access from 2008.

Food science & nutrition - Open access from 2012. 

Foods - Open access from 2013.

International journal of food properties - Open access from 2018. 

Toxins - Open access from 2009.

Oceanography & Water Resources

Aquaculture environment interactions - Open access from 2010.

Aquatic biology - Open access from  2014.

Aquatic invasions - Open access from 2006.

Fishery bulletin - Open access from 1881.

Frontiers in marine science - Open access from 2014.

Hydrology and Earth system sciences - Open access from 1997.

Marine and coastal fisheries - Open access from 2009.

Water - Open access from 2009.

Plant Sciences

BMC plant biology - Open access from 2001.

Botanical studies - Open access from 2006.

Frontiers in plant science - Open access from 2010. 

Journal of plant interactions - Open access from 2015.

Plant biotechnology journal - Open access from 2016.

Plant genome - Open access from 2008.

Plant methods - Open access from 2011. 

Wine & Viticulture 

International journal of wine research - Open access from 2011.

OENO one - Open access from 1968.

A datasset is the raw data that has been collected by researchers and government institutions. There are countless different types of datasets from countless organizations. Helpful datasets pertaining to these projects may include demographic information, opinion and market surveys, soil and horticulture maps, and so much more.