AGRIS was created in 1974 to facilitate information exchange and to bring together world literature dealing with all aspects of agriculture. AGRIS is a cooperative system in which participating countries input references to the literature produced within their boundaries and, in return, draw on the information provided by the other participants.
To date, 240 national, international and intergovernmental centres participate. The AGRIS repository is continuously updated and currently contains over 2.3 million bibliographi references.