Job Summary
The Senior Agronomist, a new position for Digital Green - Ethiopia, will bring a sense of scientific rigor and knowledge to the in-country team as a whole and will report to the Director-Agricultural Extension, Strategy & Policy (East Africa), helping to enhance the unit’s drive towards farmer impact. The successful candidate will have strong experience working for the NGO sector, liaisoning with the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR); will be an initiative-taking employee; and will support the country portfolio with accurate and detailed value-chain analysis to further improve the incomes of smallholder farmers.
The Senior Agronomist will be responsible to provide and share agronomic and technical related practices across major cereal crops such as wheat, maize, barely, tef and sorghum as well as other high value crops such as onion, tomato and pepper. The incumbent will also have a deep understanding of natural resource management and conservation agriculture. The role will include the following responsibilities:identification of, categorization of, and updating of improved agronomic practices for Digital Green’s country portfolio activities; aggregating the knowledge of various technical content in consultation with EIAR (Ethiopia Institute for Agricultural Research) and ATA (the Agricultural Transformation Agency); and information share, training and enhancing the technical understanding of various agronomic technical practices across Digital Green’s field teams. All of these responsibilities will contribute substantially towards ensuring that the agronomic technical content is leveraged for greater on-ground impact within smallholder farmers.
The role will require close coordination and collaboration of various research/advisory forums whereby Digital Green partners provide guidance on diverse sets of content, enhancing the quality of extension/advisory services provided by the MoANR in general
Key Responsibilities
Create, review, and continuously modify a “living framework” for improved agronomic practices (and non-negotiable elements) across cereal crops as well as high value crops under a “value-chain” centered lens.
Provide technical support through collaborative trainings and knowledge-share with Program and M&E team
Support the Director-Agriculture Extension Strategy & Policy with advocacy (a key pillar of Digital Green’s new 5 year organizational strategy).
Qualifications and Experiences
Skills and Competencies
Significant knowledge of agronomic practices as well as smallholder farmer ground level implementation challenges and opportunities;