Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist

Job Title: Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist

Project: Strengthening Farmers & SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production in Nigeria (StreFas)

Reports to: Program Manager

Location: Kaduna

About TechnoServe:

Everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better future. This simple idea has been at the heart of TechnoServes work around the world for over 50 years. TechnoServe is a pioneer in leveraging the power of business and markets to create sustainable pathways out of poverty.

The low-income communities in which we work are full of enterprising people. Their small-scale farms and businesses are the keys to economic development. But they face many challenges: low literacy lack of access to jobs and markets unpredictable political dynamics and increasingly the effects of climate change. For many women and young people the challenges are even more daunting. Working with TechnoServe staff people around the world are lifting themselves out of poverty. The results are amazingwhen incomes increase and living conditions for families get better they can access health care and education previously out of reach. Communities and even whole countries are better off.

Program Overview:

The StreFas Project aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions through regenerative agricultural practices and at the same time develop an inclusive sustainable scalable and adaptable regenerative agriculture solution to help smallholder farmers (SHFs) and local SMEs (aggregators) be more resilient and produce low-carbon grains in Nigeria. The three-year project will provide a guaranteed structured market for farmers to produce high-quality grains yearly with a significant quantity of grains produced from environmentally sustainable practices. The project aims to impact up to 25000 SHFs directly as beneficiaries of the program. Importantly StreFas will sustain and scale up the successful elements of the regenerative agriculture pilot of the Developing Inclusive Grain Value Chains in Nigeria (DIGVCN) project.

Job Summary:

The Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist -Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production in Nigeria (StreFas) will work under the supervision of the Program Manager to provide overall project technical support to the StreFas team in Kaduna and Nasarawa States and the goal is to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through regenerative agricultural practices. This goal will be achieved primarily through upskilling Maize Rice Sorghum and Soybean farmers in regenerative agricultural practices. S/he will provide technical support to facilitate farmer behavioral change from conventional agriculture to regenerative and climate-adapted agriculture. The tasks outlined below are the key responsibilities of the employee however s/he will be expected to perform other tasks that are necessary within the context of the evolving needs of TechnoServes Agricultural portfolio.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

• Provide technical oversight of the projects interventions related to the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions through regenerative agricultural practices. S/he will be the technical lead facilitating activities aimed at achieving farmer behavioral change from conventional agriculture to regenerative and climate-adapted agriculture.
• Work with the Program Manager to engage the relevant practice teams internally to get maximum support that ensures the successful delivery of the project.
• Optimize team technical competence and ensure that members are adequately capacitated to conduct their respective project activities and upskilled in critical areas of the project such as regenerative agricultural practices and carbon credit calculations. Mentor and build the technical capacity of field staff on regenerative agricultural practices.
• In collaboration with the Program Manager develop training curriculum for farmers and coordinate all required training including training-of-trainers (ToTs) and ensure all training manuals are updated throughout the life of the project.
• Work closely with the Program Manager and the Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) specialist to ensure proper and timely reports of the program for internal communication and action. Support the sharing of best practices and lessons learned from the project and program communication activities.
• Adapt project approaches as needed to reach targets and milestones related to GHG Emissions reduction and mitigation targets and the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices.
• With the MEL Specialist to assess the impact of the projects interventions and ensure high-quality data is being collected to demonstrate project results particularly related to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduced/mitigated through regenerative agricultural practices.
• Contribute to donor reports and presentations and work with the Program Manager to represent the project at external meetings and events.
• Assess the gaps in SMEs (Aggregators)/SHFs technical knowledge and capacity and develop adequate technical training to enhance performance.
• Understand respect and promote TechnoServes values vision and strategy in the implementation of assigned duties.
• Any other tasks that may be assigned about the evolving needs of the project.

Qualifications:

• An advanced degree in Crop Science Agronomy or other relevant field and at least 5 years of relevant professional experience with a bachelors degree. Alternatively 3 years with a Masters degree.
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of regenerative agriculture carbon credits and greenhouse gas emission reduction through regenerative practices.
• Demonstrated experience in leading technical studies such as environmental impact assessment baseline and endline evaluation studies and so on.
• Experience working in Nigeria is preferred.

Required Languages:Fluency in English is required. Other preferred Language Hausa.

Travel:Local travel 40-50%

Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• Deep understanding of regenerative agricultural practices in the Nigerian context.
• Demonstrated ability to interact effectively and collaboratively with a broad range of public and private sector counterparts and other key stakeholders.
• Strong interpersonal and communications skills in a multicultural environment.
• Ability to work with tight deadlines while managing multiple tasks and priorities.
• Ability to contribute to well-written cohesive analyses and reports.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Closing Statements:

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServesvision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer andaffirmative action employerand do not discriminate on the basis of gender race color ethnicity religion sexual orientation gender identity age HIV/AIDS status protected veteran status disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff partners and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources ator call 1 .

Required Experience:

Senior IC