The Agriculture Officer will be leading the implementation of SAAD’s Agriculture related interventions under resilience program activities in the designated project area e.g. to ensure that project activities and outputs are implemented in a timely manner and according to the Operational and M&E Plan, ensure high quality reports are submitted in a timely manner and work closely with the project manager to ensure reports meet project requirements, plan and follow the activities of the project with the team, ensure the involvement and inform communities and community leaders about the project activities and maintain  close working relationship with local authorities, partners and other actors as well. The incumbent reports hierarchically and technically to the FSL & Resilience Manager.

The Agronomist Officer’s core responsibilities will include but not limited to the following:

Objective 1: Key responsibilities (Technical lead and Implementation).

·        Responsible for the implementation of the assigned project in the targeted districts/area and lead field teams to carry out a high quality implementation.

·       Ensuring high performance level of their team and ensuring that activities and targets are met as per the program work plan.

·       She/he will provide management, operational and technical support/training and assist the project team in the implementation of the project.

·       She/he will be responsible for facilitating appropriate community involvement in the stages of the program activities (local leaders, local authorities and local communities).

·        Lead community mobilization, sensitization, identification, verification and registration of beneficiaries and make sure beneficiary data is correct and complete and provide feedback on the process.

·       Enhancing community resilience that may include through implementation of high quality interventions e.g. improving farming systems.

·       Provide regular updates on the project interventions, including areas of food access/availability, food shortages and lead in monthly market monitoring updates.

·       Ensure that GREDO’s objectives and approaches are well disseminated to raise awareness amongst beneficiaries ensuring compliance of policies and procedures on project implementations.

·       She/he will be responsible for community entry, developing and maintaining relationships with all project stakeholders.

·       Responsible for empowering the communities to enable them adopt to unforeseen natural shocks through creation of innovative livelihood options and system strengthening.

·       Responsible for ensuring equal participation by all categories of the community, taking into consideration issues regarding gender mainstreaming, age groups, PLWDs, and clan affiliations with in the area.

·       Develop crop calendar and support farmers to adopt to better farming approaches e.g. seed rate, proper crop spacing, soil fertility, pest management and harvesting techniques, improving crop yield etc., collect soil samples and share with designated soil laboratory for testing soil nutrition deficiencies and provide recommendation on treatment measures to farmers for improvement.

·       Create strategies in improving crop production and management by promoting better agricultural strategies to counter the effects of poor soils, climate change, weather and pest damage.

·       Assist farmers on proper seed selection, land preparation, planting, irrigation and crop water need, trials and keep detailed records of crop performance.

·       Conduct training for farmers on good agricultural practices, ecosystem management e.g. agro forestry and agro ecological practices and techniques.

·       Lead in the identification of project beneficiaries in collaboration with the local community representatives and stakeholders from the local authority using community based approaches.

·       Identification of farmer needs, interests, knowledge gaps, problems they are facing with their crops (e.g. pests and diseases; access to inputs, pasture quality preservation) in the different villages. And formulate an achievable strategy to improve agricultural production within the project life cycle

·       Monitoring food security situation and lead in problem/ needs identification in your project locations and also from your operation area e.g. rainfall and cropping status, market prices, and prevailing humanitarian needs.