INFOCRIS is an interactive system focusing on food and environmental contaminants. The system was developed from FAO's GPPIS (Global Plant and Pest Information System). Emphasis is on Codex standards and facilitating international food trade in relation to contaminants and residues.

INFOCRIS targets the FAO and IAEA medium term objectives by becoming: 

• a proactive provider and facilitator of co-operative research to generate strategic technology and knowledge for promoting good agricultural practices and environmental sustainability; 
•  a provider of sound and timely scientific and technical services especially about nuclear techniques used in food and agriculture; and
•  an authoritative source of technical information and its dissemination for improved decision-making and public understanding of food contaminants and residues.

INFOCRIS is a learning system as well as a system for learning. It is not a publication that requires regular reprinting of new editions. Instead, it establishes a set of standard methods and protocols for data collection and maintenance under password-protection. This creates a dynamic framework for collective knowledge processing that can be implemented through a variety of environments on the Internet, in local Intranets and as a stand-alone database, which will also be available on CD-ROM. See the description of CD-ROM issues in the Resource window. Online help is available for the general user, specialists and editors. However, for those who prefer a hardcopy the INFOCRIS Manual & Editors Guide may be downloaded  in PDF ready to print.

INFOCRIS data are in the public domain under copyright because they are created and maintained by the community of individuals who choose to participate in the evolution of INFOCRIS. Contributions by sponsors and editors are voluntary and motivated by the realization that individual action is the best way to encourage others to share their individual expertise.

INFOCRIS is a dynamic, interactive, digital implementation of traditional approaches whereby a group of authors band together to publish. Like journals and books, INFOCRIS has a Supervisor, who welcomes your comments, editors, referees and critical readers. INFOCRIS uses the same peer review processes employed by refereed journals. However, individual pieces of information are not bought or sold but remain the property of the author. The collected sum of information belongs to everybody because the task of providing data and keeping the information current and accurate is distributed globally. Every time an individual INFOCRIS user contributes his time and knowledge, he gains access to the sum of all similar contributions.

You are welcome and invited to participate.