Institution of Agricultural Research and Higher Education (IRESA) Ministry of Agriculture Agricultural Information Management Agricultural Biotechnology for Knowledge sharing in NENA Region 2-4 July 2012 Cairo-Egypt

Value of agricultural exportations in 2009 : MD Sea products Dates Cereals derivates Agrumes Horticultural products Olive oil

Value of agricultural importations in 2009: MD Vegetable oils Sugar Sea products Cereals

Presentation of I. R. E. S. A 6 Research Institutes 4 Regional Research Centers - 2 Regional branches - 11 Higher Education Institutes - 20 experimental stations - 15 incubators for creating spin off 28 Research Laboratories 15 Research units Researchers (full time) 380 Scientists U.Y. 2010/2011: 413 Doctorates and 933 Masters For more details, please consult the IRESAs Web site:

Plan for Agricultural Research The priorities items established by Tunisia are: Food security Preservation and sustainable management of natural resources (water, soil, erosion,…) Development of crops of high added value for exportation Management of abundance of some products Quality of agricultural products (vegetables and animals)

Priorities 13 priority domains were identified (June 2010) Cereals, legumes and forages Natural resources (water, soil, forestry) and climate change Breeding & animal feeding Tree crop productions Horticultural crops Aridology & Oasian agriculture Agricultural mechanization Fishing and fish farming Animal health Organic agriculture Post harvest: transformation and industrialisation of agricultural products Plant protection & Quality of agricultural products Socio economy aspects and agricultural policies Priorities are set up by Commissions of Programmation, Evaluation of Research in Agriculture (CPERAs) formed by researchers, scientists, representatives of development and farmers.

The new Strategy An evaluation of the first decennial strategy ( ) was undertaken by the National Committee of Evaluation of Research Activities (CNEAR). A new decennial plan was prepared. It includes new programs such as: Organic agriculture Climate change Post harvest Plant protection Quality of agricultural products Socio economy aspects & agricultural policies.

ICT in Tunisia Internet users : Subscribers : ( broadband : ) Official address : Domain names (.tn) : Web sites : Internet service providers (ISP) : 12 3G Providers : 3

IP Backbone Internet Service Provider IRESA Backbone Tunisie Télécom PoP IRESA Béja PoP IRESA Kairouan PoP IRESA Sousse Eumedconnect Router project ATI Kasbah PoP IRESA Kasbah (Ancienne Salle ATI) IRESA 30, rue Alain Savary Tunis PoP IRESA Sfax PoP IRESA Médenine PoP IRESA Gafsa 9 PoPs : Point of presence Main PoP IRESA Kasbah Tunisian Agency of Internet PoP IRESA Nabeul FO 30 Mb. VRF F.O 1Gb VRF 1 Gb 100 M National 100 M F.O International October VRF ESIATunis ENMVet. IRVT ISEPBG Soukra ISPA Bizerte ESA Mograne ISPTabarka CNVZooSanitair e CRDAs Ben Arous, Manouba, Tunis, Ariana BIRH VRF Researh institutes, higher education Institutes, regional research center, CRDA…. WANs LANs

In IRESA : Division in charge of ICT (DTTIC: Division of information technology and communication) 5 engineers: 3 in computer network and 2 in computer programming 4 analysts in computer programming 1 technician in multimedia IRESA is an Internet Service Provider (ISP ) for the agriculture sector : Web and information system hosting, provider, Security, Management of the agricultural national network, Development and management of RAIS. ICT infrastructure and Capacity 1/2

ICT infrastructure and Capacity 2/2 IRESA websites : W3C, Valid RSS Twitter CIARD member OpenData project

IRESA use Horizon for virtual library improve the library information systems such as: - Cataloging and classification, - Circulation, - Provision, - Procurement. The library of the agricultural scientific resources allows reaching electronic resources with knowing: - the national and foreign collective catalogs in the agricultural field - bibliographical databases -) – Electronic resources 1000 (thesis, memories...) full text. Dictionaries and thesaurus (Agrovoc) This library is actually online Library information systems

This experience started in 2004 with Water resources courses for technician degree. Many efforts were deployed in capacity building for teachers in digital pedagogy. Other specialties: (field crops, animal health) Number of courses: 40 This distance learning system is composed of the following items: courses, discussion forum, chat, agenda and mail. Learners having had their diplomas: 500 We plan to adopt scorm Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) : collection of standards Distance learning

All scientific and technical staff of the NARS has Internet access from their office and . ( LAN and wifi) All institutes have electronic library subscriptions such as American Chemical Society, Blackwell, Elsevier, IEEE, Informs, Proquest and Thomson Scientific. All of their scientific and technical staff and students have access to these libraries. The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) (an easy-to-use database that gives users immediate access to full-text PDF articles) is used over the local area network and is updated every year. Existing mechanisms of accessing and exchanging information

All institutes are connected to the Internet and intranet by the national agricultural network (AGRINET) which is managed by the IRESA and they are also connected to EUMEDCONNECT (The EUMEDCONNECT network serves the research and education communities of the Mediterranean region, and is linked to the pan-European GÉANT2 network) Each institute is connected with a leased line and at least 1 Mbps of bandwidth or fiber optic. Number of scientific computing servers: 2 Ratio of Number of computers with Number of Scientific Staff: 1 Available infrastructure and financial facilities

Since 2008, IRESA organized a steering committee in ICT and a steering and management committees for information security. These steering committees are headed by the president of IRESA. At the national level, a study defined and adopted a national policy/strategy in ICT ( E-gov) ( benchmarking, policy/strategy, roadmap) IRESA participated in the evaluation and validation of this study ( adoption of the national strategy). Policy and strategies

IRESA is member of : FARA ARIMNET ( portal, database, communication tools) developed by IRESA AARINENA Mohsen KRICHI