ABSTRACTThis article traces the development of AGRIS and CARIS systems developed by the FAO's Library and Documentation Systems Division in the sharing of agricultural research and current agriculture research activities and describes the AGRIN package, highlighting its benefits for developing countries. The potential problems for developing countries in producing printed outputs are discussed. Ways to create additional print formats for viewing of records online or for the generation of the printed outputs are presented. The methodology presented has been used to create CA-GRINDEX: abstracts of agriculture literature of the Caribbean.