AGRICOLA IND 92017551; Presented at the VIII World Congress of IAALD, May, 1990, Budapest, Hungary, CAB International (CABI) activities that enhance the dissemination of agricultural research results to and from Eastern European countries by close cooperation with national agricultural information centres are reviewed. CABI has been distributing abstract journals throughout Eastern Europe for many years and has regularly received direct from Eastern Europe abstracts of the region's agricultural research literature. In 1958, "World Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology Abstracts" was established with the International Economics Association and IAALD, based in Vienna, and most of the abstracts were contributed by a network of people linked to these two organizations. Input to WAERSA and other CABI journals from individual abstracters in Eastern Europe continues to this day. In the early 1980s AGROINFORM, within the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, began supplying CABI with abstracts of Hungarian agricultural publications. It acquired CAB ABSTRACTS on magnetic tape several years ago and in January 1990 became the first Eastern European country to acquire the database on CD-ROM. In 1988, Hungary became the first Eastern European country to join CABI, bringing its total membership to 30. In November 1989, CABI signed an agreement with VNIITEIAgroprom, the All-Union Research Institute of Information and Economic Studies of the Agro-industrial Complex, Moscow, with the dual aim of enhancing worldwide knowledge of Soviet agricultural research and access by Soviet researchers to global information sources.
