Introduction

     France  belongs to the group of countries which have  been
part of the AGRIS system from when it was set up in 1975. Since
this  date, the French AGRIS center is under the responsibility
of  INRA  (National  Institute of Agricultural  Research).  The
French  input  is processed by its Documentation Service,  with
the  contribution of CIRAD (Centre of International Cooperation
in  Oriented Agricultural Research), which is working mainly in
tropical and subtropical zones .

    statistics 1991-1995
    year    1991    1992    1993    1994    1995
    nber of
    references    6371    6518    6392    6100    7719

     According  to a recent study, this AGRIS input  represents
about  50%  of   the production of agricultural information  in
France covering  AGRIS fields.


     In addition to supplying this bibliographical data, France
has always actively supported the AGRIS system: a French expert
at  the  disposal of the AGRIS Coordinating Center  during  ten
years,   two   Frenchspeaking   AGRIS   seminars   in   France,
participation  in  several AGRIS training  courses  abroad  and
participation in  AGROVOC workshops.


    Situation of agricultural information in France

     Contrary  to numerous countries, there is no  organisation
which  manages  and  circulates information  in  the  field  of
agriculture  at  the  national level in  France.  "Agricultural
development" (a French concept covering extension services) has
been    under    the    responsibility   of   socioprofessional
organizations since 1966.

     Agricultural  information,  which  can  include  economic,
fiscal,  scientific, technical or the financial  aspects...  is
produced  by  institutions in relationship with these  sectors.
Besides  the  Ministry of Agriculture, most  of  these  have  a
status  dependent  on  public  law:  INRA,  CEMAGREF  (Research
Institute  for  Agricultural  and  Environmental  Engineering),
IFREMER (French Research Institute for the Exploitation of  the
Sea),  and  others.  We must also include,  for  the  field  of
tropical agriculture the CIRAD and ORSTOM (French Institute  of
Scientific  Research  for Co-operative Development),  and  also
CNRS (National Center of Scientific Research) and Universities.
All  these  institutions produce mainly scientific  information
and    the   professional   organizations   produce   technical
information.

     Most  of these institutions and organizations manage  data
bases  for their own needs, and their size varies considerably.
We  must  cite  in  particular the  PASCAL  database  of  INIST
(Institute  of Scientific and Technical Information,  dependent
on the CNRS); PASCAL covers international literature in applied
sciences, technology and medicine, however according  to  AGRIS
it is incomplete in the field of agriculture.

     In  the course of the last twenty years, the documentation
landscape  has  changed little, even though  modern  techniques
have been developed.


Place of AGRIS in agricultural information


     When AGRIS began, it was out of the question in France  to
develop  a  new  specific data base for  AGRIS.  INRA  supplies
manpower for a certain volume of input, and is looking for  the
contribution  of other scientific or agricultural  institutions
and  organizations also concerned by the scope of AGRIS. Up  to
present , all efforts have been without success.

     Bibliographical data processed by INRA for AGRIS are  also
used  for a French agricultural data base, RESAGRI, which is  a
network  similar  to the AGRIS network at the  national  level.
RESAGRI is oriented towards education and professional sectors;
but,  for  various reasons, it is not possible to extract  data
for AGRIS.


    Future prospects


     Without  being  overly optimistic,  we  can  hope  to  see
solutions  for  improving the French AGRIS  input  for  several
reasons.

     French  institutions are feeling the  need  for  a  better
«  visibility » of their production of agricultural  scientific
and technical information in the world.

     Their  own  data bases are taking international  standards
into  consideration; therefore French data are compatible  with
AGRIS standards, and re-formating should not be too difficult.

     The  AGROVOC thesaurus has been improved since  its  first
edition;   its   multilinguism,  including   French   is   much
appreciated and it is adopted readily by French organizations..

     Finally, present economic restrictions necessitate a  more
efficient   and   less   costly  management   of   agricultural
information.


     We  fully  agree  with the recommendations  of  the  AGRIS
Coordinating Center: the cost of participation in AGRIS must be
low,  simply  the  cost  of adapting national  input  to  AGRIS
standards, because every country must have good control of  the
agricultural information which it produces.

                      FRENCH INSTITUTIONS

CEMAGREF 	Institut de Recherche pour l'Ingénierie de
		l'Agriculture et de l'Environnement

CIRAD        	Centre de Coopération Internationale de la
		Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement

CNRS    	Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

IFREMER      	Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation 
		de la Mer

INIST        	Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique

INRA        	Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique

ORSTOM       	Institut Français de Recherche Scientifique pour le
            	Développement en Coopération