The Center for Agricultural Resources Research, IGDB, CAS (hereinafter referred to as the center) started out in 1978 as the Shijiazhuang Institute of Agricultural Modernization at the CAS. In 2002, it was renamed what it's called today after its integration into the institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the CAS amid the implementation of the strategic plan of the academy's leading Party group in the context that the academy's Knowledge Innovation Program was in full swing. The center remains an independent institution as a legal person.

The center is committed to meeting China's strategic needs for food security, water security, and ecological security by focusing its research on the efficient utilization of agricultural water resources. Specifically, the center works to innovate on the resource ecology theory and the resource-saving modern agricultural technology system, accelerate the application of advances in science and technology, and improve social services, thereby developing the center into an innovation powerhouse that can benefit the whole world.

The center puts its strategic focus on three research fields: the hydrological process of farmland and the efficient utilization of water resources, the ecosystem process and management, and the creation of germplasm resources and the cultivation of new varieties. The center's development goals include building a national agricultural water resources research platform supported by field stations and key laboratories and setting up an agricultural technology network radiation and service system; forming some research teams that can advance the key theories and technologies for China's envisioned leading agriculture; making breakthroughs in core technologies for wheat breeding, the efficient utilization of water resources, environmental conservation and farmland pollution control, and turning the breakthroughs into business value. 

Over the past 40 years, the center has undertaken the 973 National Basic Research Program, the 863 National High Technology Research and Development Program, the National Science and Technology Support Plan, projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, the National Science and Technology Major Project, the National Key R&D Program, the CAS's key knowledge innovation projects and STS projects, Heibei Province's key projects, and Sino-foreign cooperative projects on the national, local or CAS level. The center has made 121 scientific and technological achievements that won national and provincial awards such as the grand and second prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the outstanding contribution award of Hebei Province, and the first prize of Hebei Science and Technology Progress Award. In addition, the center has obtained 298 authorized patents and published 53 monographs and 1633 papers, making substantial contributions to China's economic and social development and scientific and technological progress.

The center has 141 registered members of staff including 132 government-subsidized experts, plus 34 temporary workers such as post-doctors. It boasts an academician of the CAS and about 70 senior technology professionals, many of whom have been selected for the National Talent Plan and the CAS Talent Plan. The center owns a post-doctoral workstation in ecology; it offers doctoral programs in ecology and genetics and master's programs in biology and medicine. At present, there are more than 130 master's students and doctoral students, including 18 from overseas. 

The center comprises the water resources and water-saving agriculture research office, the ecology and environment research office, the plant genetics and breeding research office, the regional agriculture and policy research office, the Party Committee office, and six departments including the personnel education department, the scientific research department, the finance department, the assets and platform department, and the editorial department. Along the 38° north latitude zone in Hebei province, the center has established the Taihang Mountain Ecological Experiment Station in Yuanshi County, the Luancheng Agricultural Ecosystem Experiment Station in Luancheng District, the Nanpi Ecological Agriculture Experiment Station in Nanpi County, the Nandagang Coastal Wetland Ecological Experiment Station in the Nandagang Industrial Park, and the Saibei Ecological Experiment Station in the Saibei Agro-pastoral Ecotone of the Zhangjiakou Saibei Management Area, forming a scientific research base that spans Saibei grassland, hilly area, coastal plain and coastal wetland with different ecosystems. Among them, the Luancheng Agricultural Ecosystem Experiment Station joined the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network as one of the first basic stations in 1989 and became a member of the Global Terrestrial Observing System in 1999, a station of the Chinese National Ecosystem Research Network in 2005, and an agricultural science observation and experiment station in 2019. It's also a member of the International Long Term Ecological Research. The Taihang Mountain Ecological Experiment Station became a fixed station for ecosystem observation and research under the Forestry Administration of China in 2013 and a member of the National Terrestrial Ecosystem’s network of fixed stations for observation and research in 2014. The Nanpi Ecological Agriculture Experiment Station was upgraded to an agricultural science observation and experiment station in 2019. It's a member of the Field Station Alliance of Farmland Ecosystem Observation and Research under the CAS. 

As a supporting unit, the center has five ministerial and provincial laboratories, namely the Key Laboratory for Agricultural Water Resources of the CAS, the Engineering Laboratory for the Efficient Utilization of Saline-Alkali Land Resources of the CAS, Hebei Key Laboratory for Water-Saving Agriculture, and Hebei Engineering Laboratory of Breeding and Germplasm Innovation for Plant Stress Tolerance, and Hebei Key Laboratory of Soil Ecology. The center has also teamed up with the Netherlands' Wageningen University & Research to establish the China-Netherlands Laboratory on "Food-Environment-Resource Coupling and Regulation Mechanism". 

Affiliated with the Hebei Society of Agricultural Engineering, the center is responsible for editing and publishing the Chinese Journal of Eco-Agriculture (Chinese and English).