IRESA is the main agricultural research and higher education institution in Tunisia. It comprises 6 research institutes, 4 regional centers, 11 higher education institutes, and various experimental stations and laboratories. IRESA manages the national agricultural network and provides internet and IT services to research organizations. It is developing distance learning programs and digital library resources. IRESA participates in national and regional initiatives to improve access to agricultural information through the use of ICT.

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

2. Value of agricultural exportations in 2009 : 1849.5 MD
Cereals
derivates
Dates
Sea
products
Agrumes Horticultural
products
Olive oil

3. Value of agricultural importations in 2009: 2432.7 MD
Vegetable
oils
Sugar
Sea
products
Cereals

4. 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
- 270 Researchers (full time)
• 380 Scientists
• U.Y. 2010/2011: 413 Doctorates and 933 Masters
• For more details, please consult the IRESA’s Web
site: www.iresa.tn
• www.facebook.com/iresa.tunisie

5. 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)

6. 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.

7. The new Strategy
An evaluation of the first decennial strategy (1999-2008)
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.

8. ICT in Tunisia
Internet users : 4.000 000
Subscribers : 600.000
( broadband : 518.000)
Official email address : 700.000
Domain names (.tn) : 16.800
Web sites : 12.000
Internet service providers (ISP) : 12
3G Providers : 3

9. IP Backbone Internet Service Provider IRESA
Tunisian Agency of
Internet
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
Médenine
PoP IRESA
Sfax
PoP
IRESA
Gafsa
9 PoPs : Point of presence
Main
PoP IRESA
Kasbah
PoP
IRESA
Nabeul
FO 30 Mb.
VRF
F.O 1Gb
VRF
1 Gb
100 M
National
100 M F.O
International
October 2011.
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
WANs
LANs

10. ICT infrastructure and Capacity 1/2
• 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,
E-mail provider,
Security,
Management of the agricultural national network,
Development and management of RAIS.

11. ICT infrastructure and Capacity 2/2
• IRESA websites : W3C, Valid RSS
• www.facebook.com/iresa.tunisie
• Twitter : @IRESA_Tunisie
• CIARD member
• OpenData project

12. Library information systems
• 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 www.birsa.agrinet.tn

13. Distance learning
• 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

14. Existing mechanisms of accessing and exchanging
information
• All scientific and technical staff of the NARS has Internet
access from their office and E-mail. ( 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.

15. Available infrastructure and financial facilities
• 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

16. Policy and strategies
• 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).

17. • IRESA is member of :
• FARA
• ARIMNET ( portal, database, communication tools)
developed by IRESA
• AARINENA
Mohsen KRICHI
krichi@iresa.tn