About CRS: “Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partner’s people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.”
In Ethiopia, CRS has a long and rich history of providing emergency relief and development assistance to the people of Ethiopia since 1958. At present, CRS/Ethiopia implements multiple projects through different partner organizations. CRS/Ethiopia has a highly diverse portfolio ranging from very large food-supported emergency response to cutting edge development programs. The current CRS/Ethiopia budget stands at $100 million with funding from the U.S. Government, UN agencies, private foundations, individual donors, and CRS private funds.
CRS strictly adheres to its Policy on Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults among its staff, consultants, volunteers, and affiliates. CRS is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer: women, minorities and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply.
Background
Regreening Africa with trees project is an ambitious five-year project that seeks to reverse land degradation among 500,000 households, and across one million hectares in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In Ethiopia, the project sets a target to restore 200,000 ha of degraded and deforested land across four regions, namely, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray through benefiting nearly 120,000 vulnerable households via improving their livelihoods and supporting to becoming resilient to climate related shocks. To achieve this ambitious objective, the project mobilizes and works with a critical mass of diverse partners to scale up locally-appropriate ways of integrating trees into agricultural systems to successfully reverse land degradation across Ethiopia. At different levels, the project provides trainings to its critical stakeholders (IP staff, government representatives, communities) to develop their skills and knowledge to facilitate the adoption and scaling up of regreening approaches and to bring mindset changes to accelerate project implementation pace and quality.
CRS project team acknowledges the existence of major technical gaps during its various monitoring visits in Year II implementation period and has planned to address the issue through providing trainings and technical support on selected topics to equip partners’ staff with critical skills to build their capacity and confidence in cascading trainings to government experts, communities and other relevant stakeholders engaged in scaling-up evergreening agriculture practices and potentially leveraging with other projects. At this time, the project intends to give training of trainers to implementing partners’ staff on topics related to fruit tree management through bringing together different experts from different organizations to fill the technical gaps observed.
Objective
The aim of this training is to expose participants (IPs’ staff) to the range of methodologies and techniques that can help improve the delivery of the project outcomes through accelerating the adoption and scaling up of regreening options across project sites. The training will be highly participatory and practical, focusing on techniques, tools and tips of conceptualizing regreening options such as Agroforestry at homestead particularly fruit tree management at homestead /garden. Participants will be required to apply lessons in developing and delivering trainings based on their own experience and local context to project end users and relevant stakeholders (government, private sectors, non-government organizations).
By the end of this five-day training, participants will be able to:
· Develop practical skills in designing and planning of fruit crops nursery establishment
· Gain essential skills and practices in fruit tree management (grafting, cultural practices, disease management, post-harvest management, etc.,)
Deliverables
The expected deliverables of this assignment are:
· Training document (Power point presentation slides, pictures and relevant documents)
· Brief grafting procedures for mango, avocado and citrus
Training methodology
This training is designed to be a very interactive process that encourages active participation and involvement of the participants. The approach combines lecturing, practical sessions, small groups’ activities, and exercises, designed to facilitate methods through which the trainers and participants will be constantly interacting while the trainers are facilitating the learning process. The methodology includes
I. Power point presentation
II. Group discussions
III. Practical sessions on the field
Fruit crops management
The fruit crops training should focus on Mango, papaya, citrus, avocado, guava
1. Introduction to Fruit crops
1.1. Significance of fruit crops
1.2. Nutritional & economic importance
1.3. Current production and market status of major fruit crops of Ethiopia
2. Fruit crops classification based on agro-ecology (specifically targeting Arsi and Tigray areas)
3. Fruit tree propagation
3.1. Methods of fruit crops propagation
3.2. Grafting (rootstock and scion selection, grafting type, key steps for successful grafting, etc.
3.3. Major fruit crop varieties currently on production
4. Nursery establishment
4.1. Criteria for fruit crop nursery establishment
4.2. Fruit tree seedlings at nursery: standard management practices (bed preparation, orientation/layout, sowing, caring, other management techniques/practices)
5. Mango, Avocado, Papaya, Guava and Citrus fruit crops (individual crops will be treated as per the below outline)
6. Planning before planting
6.1. Site selection, soil type and drainage, varietal selection, tree spacing, planting etc.)
7. Cultural practices
7.1. Planting, weed control, fertilization, fruit tree pruning, pollination, disease and insect pest management, etc.)
8. Harvest and post-harvest handling
8.1. Harvest system and technique,
8.2. Post-harvest handling,
8.3. Challenges in handling fresh produces,
8.4. Measures to be taken to reduce post-harvest losses,
8.5. Grading and packing,
8.6. Care while transporting to market, etc.)
9. On-field practical session
9.1. Mother tree selection,
9.2. Rootstock and scion selection,
9.3. Tools required for grafting, grafting type, steps in grafting and care during grafting, etc.)
Required Qualification
Education:
· Key personnel required for this assignment must have an educational background of MSc degree in the field of Horticulture.
Experience
· Experience in offering theoretical & practical training to similar trainees on fruit crops management.