Job offer: Senior Agronomist Advisor– Bio-stimulant Marketing Phygital Model

TechnoServe is a non-profit, economic development organisation with sustained commitment to its 50-year old founding mission to work with enterprising men and women in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. We are business specialists assisting farmers and other entrepreneurs in 29 countries, increasing their access to information, capital, and markets. The increased income our clients derive enhances resilience and prosperity for their families and communities.

TechnoServe was competitively selected by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to lead part of a seven -year programme – Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusinesses (CASA) – focused on driving catalytic change in how investors view and invest in agribusinesses operating in supply chains with significant numbers of smallholder producers. CASA is focused on increasing economic opportunities for smallholder farmers by:

• Enabling more smallholder farmers to engage with and trade into commercial markets;
• Demonstrating the commercial viability of agribusinesses with significant smallholder supply chains and attracting more investment into these businesses;
• Deepening the smallholder impact of investments made by development finance institutions and impact investors.

TechnoServe’s role on CASA is to establish and operate a £10 million Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) to support agribusinesses that have received development finance institution (DFI) or impact investor financing to extend and deepen their smallholder impact. The facility provides grants and technical assistance to agribusinesses that have received financing from a DFI (e.g., BII, FMO) or an impact/patient capital investor (e.g., Dob Equity, Barak Fund) for projects which will increase the volumes of purchases from smallholders and bring new smallholders into business supply chains.

TechnoServe invites you to participate in this competitive solicitation for qualifications related to the position of Senior Agronomist Advisor to support Nileda to develop practical recommendations for smallholder farmer (SHF) sustainable rice production based on bio-stimulants to increase short- and longer-term farmer resilience to market and climate shocks in Cambodia.

Position Location: Cambodia (targeted location in Phnom Penh, travel to Prey Veng province as required

Anticipated start date: 1st of December 2024

Estimated Duration : 15 months, full-time

Duties

• Agronomic recommendations
• Develop a sustainable rice agronomy protocol which integrates climate resilience recommendations and bio-stimulants in the most effective way and building data package for bio-stimulants efficacy in rice
• Design and validate season specific input recommendations for rice based on bio-stimulants
• Demo plot design, set up and management
• Set up Nileda’s demo farm, to test and demonstrate the benefits of bio-stimulants for rice
• Develop guidelines for the lead farmers’ demo-plots
• Designing and provision of agronomic training for lead farmers with a training of trainers’ approach:
• Develop a set a training sessions and related material based on Agronomic recommendations and climate resilience
• Provide training to Lead farmers with tools to cascade the received trainings
• Supporting the Marketing Training Specialist in designing rice agronomy training around bio-stimulants for sales and marketing team as well as retailers and channels.
• Provide technical guidance to training specialist during development and provision of training to the sales and marketing team
• Proof-read material and ensure technical accuracy
• Developing key timely messaging around bio-stimulants for the phygital model and particularly the CRM tool (short messages, videos, pictures…)
• Formulate a set of key messages along the rice agronomic cycle incorporating the use of biostimulants which can be easily understood and shared
• Assist in choosing visual material to ensure good representation and accuracy of visuals and messages
• Developing a final roadmap for future scale-up to other communes, based on key learnings from the first 3 seasons
• Summarise key learning along the 3 seasons
• Define recommendations for replication and scale-up based on lessons learnt and agronomic profile of selected communes

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in agriculture / agronomy, or equivalent experience.
• At least 5 years’ experience in rice agronomy, and ideally on sustainable rice production
• At least 3 years’ experience in directly working with farmers and incorporating the farmers perspective in programmes and initiatives.
• Experience with the use and recommendation of bio-stimulants.
• Experience in promoting/supporting adoption of innovation preferred.
• Ability and willingness to visit field and farmers, understand how to increase agronomy effectiveness; understand farmer bottlenecks and develop pragmatic solutions. 
• Ability and willingness to work together with Pilot Manager (supervisor of agronomist) and Marketing team to ensure overall pilot/program success.
• Ability and willingness to train the lead farmers and Nileda Sales & Marketing team as well as channels on bio-stimulant agronomy protocol. 
• Ability to speak and write in English.
• Strong written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong computer skills, including MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
• Ability to work independently, flexibly, and responsively.
• Ability to adapt to changing working conditions.
• Ability to prioritise and meet deadlines.