agriRxiv is a free preprint server for agriculture and allied sciences, managed by CABI (CAB International) - the intergovernmental not-for-profit founded in 1910 and headquartered in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. It gives agricultural researchers a way to make a manuscript public, citable and discoverable immediately, without waiting on a journal's review queue and without paying anything.

The server began in 2017 as AgriXiv, an initiative of Open Access India hosted on OSF Preprints. CABI later took over its management, rebranded it agriRxiv, and moved it onto the CABI Digital Library, where it sits alongside CABI's journals, books and abstract databases. Because of that history you will still see both spellings in the literature, and older agrixiv.org / agrirxiv.org addresses no longer resolve reliably - start at the CABI Digital Library page.

It is a deliberately specialist server. Agriculture, food systems and rural development are poorly served by the large biomedical and physics repositories, and much of the field's output comes from institutions in low- and middle-income countries where APCs are a real barrier. agriRxiv exists to close that gap.

agriRxiv accepts complete manuscripts relating to agriculture and allied sciences, interpreted broadly: crop science and agronomy, plant protection and plant health, soil science, animal and veterinary science, food science and post-harvest technology, agricultural engineering, agricultural and resource economics, agroecology and sustainable intensification, and the social and behavioural science of farming and rural development.

Typical content includes original research manuscripts not yet submitted anywhere, manuscripts currently under review at a journal, revised versions after review, conference papers, and reviews. What it does not accept is incomplete work - a manuscript needs a methods section and references to pass screening.

1. Check journal policy first. Almost all agricultural journals now accept preprinted submissions, but confirm your target journal's preprint policy before you post.
2. Prepare a complete manuscript. A full text with methods and references, plus author names, affiliations and an abstract. Format is flexible - a standard manuscript layout is fine.
3. Choose a licence. You select either CC BY 4.0 (reuse with attribution) or CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication) at the point of posting.
4. Submit through the CABI Digital Library. Upload the manuscript and metadata; you keep copyright in your work.
5. Wait for screening. Moderation is typically completed within about 48 hours, though this is a target rather than a guarantee.
6. Share the DOI. Once live, the preprint has a permanent DOI you can cite, put in a grant report and post to colleagues.

This is the single most important thing to understand about agriRxiv. Submissions are checked by staff and volunteer moderators before they appear, and the checks cover four things: that the manuscript is in scope; that it is complete (methods and references present); that a text-overlap check does not flag plagiarism; and that the work appears original. None of that is an assessment of whether the science is correct.

A reader should treat an agriRxiv preprint the same way they would treat any unrefereed manuscript - as a claim to be evaluated on its own evidence. Authors should say plainly in talks and CVs that a preprint is a preprint.

Every posted preprint receives its own DOI, which makes it citable and trackable in the same way as a journal article. Authors retain copyright and pick their licence: CC BY 4.0 is the default choice for most, while CC0 1.0 places the work in the public domain. Preprints are permanent - if the work changes substantially after review, the usual route is to post a new version rather than to delete the original, so the record of what was claimed and when stays intact.

Always cite the DOI, and always label the item as a preprint so readers know it is unrefereed.

If the work has since appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, cite the journal version instead - or cite both, noting the preprint as the earlier record.

Posting to agriRxiv does not count as prior publication at the overwhelming majority of agricultural and life-science journals, including CABI's own titles, and it does not stop you submitting elsewhere. The two exceptions to watch for are a small number of journals that still operate a strict Ingelfinger-style rule, and double-anonymized review, where a public preprint can make you identifiable to reviewers. Check the target journal's instructions for authors, and when your paper is accepted, link the published version from the preprint record.

There is no charge to authors at any stage and no charge to readers. CABI underwrites the service as part of its remit to improve access to agricultural knowledge, which is why agriRxiv can stay free for researchers who would otherwise be priced out of open-access publishing.