The Pacific Agricultural Information System (PAIS) houses information collected in the form of journal articles, conference papers, books, extension material (including videos), and theses. The site also has information about agricultural projects implemented nationally or regionally, and a directory of Pacific agricultural organisations. PAIS has been over 30 years in the making and grew out of a grassroots’ initiative to provide better access to and use of agricultural information in the region, and preserve the literary heritage in the region. While the focus of PAIS is on agricultural information about the Pacific Islands, there is also a lot of information on allied disciplines such as forestry, environment, fisheries, rural development, and ethnology.

Besides the databases, PAIS also comprises a series of 17 Content Collections. For example, there are content collections on Food & Nutrition, Extension Information, and Climate Change. There are also 2 Special Collections, such as the one entitled Pacific Island Countries and Territories, enabling the user to find information resources – reports, publications, projects, organisations – relating to a particular country in the region.

The new version of PAIS is designed to facilitate the engagement of ‘communities’ in the agriculture sector – organisations, networks, projects, communities of practice or interest – to afford them the opportunity to establish a space on PAIS, for their community; whilst also at the same time contributing to greater knowledge sharing in the region.

The re-establishment and relaunch of PAIS has been supported by the ACIAR-funded Pacific Agriculture Scholarships, Support & Climate Resilience (PASS-CR) Program being implemented by the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

PAIS can be accessed at https://thepais.net/pais.