CARIS is the Current Agricultural Research Information System. It was created by FAO in 1975 to identify and to facilitate the exchange of information about current agricultural research projects being carried out in - or on behalf of - developing countries. An international system, working on a cooperative basis, CARIS identifies projects dealing with all aspects of agriculture: plant and animal production and protection; post harvest processing of primary agricultural products; forestry; fisheries; agricultural engineering; natural resources and the environment as related to agriculture; food and human nutrition; agricultural economics; rural development, and agricultural administration; legislation, information, education and extension.

137 national and 19 international and intergovernmental centres participate in CARIS. Centres have submitted exhaustive information on roughly 30,000 currently active projects. In addition, two regional centres submit input on behalf of 6 countries in their respective regions.

About the software

The system uses UNESCO's Micro-CDS/ISIS software as a database engine. The WEB search interface was developed by the Institute for Computer Information and Engineering (rybinski@mimuw.edu.pl ) and the AGRIS/CARIS and Documentation Group of WAICENT, at FAO-Agris-Caris@fao.org