JOB VACANCY

Job Title: Technical Advisor I- Agriculture/ Small Holder Production Reports to: Head of Office- Mbeya
Location: Mbeya, Tanzania Salary Grade: 9

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work are accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.

Country Background

CRS in Tanzania works in close collaboration with the catholic Church and implements programs through both local Caritas’s, and local secular partners. CRS has been assisting poor, vulnerable families improve their livelihoods through agriculture, nutrition, early childhood development, WASH, and health since 1962.

Job Summary:

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) seeks a qualified candidate for an Agriculture advisory role to support smallholder farmers in Songea, improve agricultural productivity and livelihoods in maize, soybean and sunflower crops while practicing CSA and GAPs as a sustainable production model. CRS Tanzania is engaging in a PPP in collaboration with a large Tanzanian company based in the Southern Highlands as well as church, and relevant District Councils to implement a scalable agricultural hub model (Agrihubs) in Ruvuma region with plans to expand to other regions of the Southern highlands of Tanzania. The aim of this initiative is to sustainably increase productivity/production and procurement of grains by linking smallholder farmers with improved agricultural technologies, climate smart agronomic training and demonstration and stable offtake markets of specific value chains. The agriculture advisor will also be responsible for other agricultural initiatives including working with local church partners on business planning and other business development efforts in the Ag/Livelihoods space for CRS Tanzania.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

Facilitate private sector partners as they map local assets, farmer groups, and farmer plots into a digital value chain management system to be able to support and monitor 10,000+farmers engaged in commercial smallholder agriculture.
Strengthen and or establish a fee-for-service agent network, leveraging existing church and former project agents, to deliver critical services to farmers to enable them to observe, test and adopt hybrid seeds and climate smart production practices, including crop rotation, to double yields of maize, soybean and sunflower.
Develop a comprehensive monitoring, evaluation and learning framework with clear performance indicators that assess the performance and impact of Agrihubs, oversee baseline, midline and endline assessment and conduct routine monitoring.
Ensure coordination of data collection from all partners (private sector, church and PASPs), leveraging existing digital management systems.
Facilitate PSAPs as they strengthen existing farmer producer groups and where necessary establish new farmer producer groups within targeted communities to benefit from the agent network and Agrihubs.
Support capacity building of local private agricultural service providers (PASPs) to provide agricultural services, including advisory, demonstration, input and marketing services to farmers.
Provide PASPs with tools and capacity to train farmer producer / marketing groups via Agrihubs and aggregate demand for improved inputs
Link farmer facing advisory services to aggregation hubs to enable more efficient collective marketing.

Monitor, supervise and assure quality services to small scale farmers, that cascade from the Agrihub(s), down to community plots and on-farm production.
Develop services with private sector companies to enhance input and output markets for improved farmer productivity.
Work with the private sector to create and maintain management of the Agrihubs to farmer learning strategies.
Coordinate and maintain a healthy relationship between partners including CRS,private sector company, local church entities and government partners.
Monitor marketing and farmer organization interventions and be able to advocate on behalf of farmers.
Monitor and report on key challenges and/or gaps identified in terms of financial performance, changes in productivity at farm level and ongoing adjustments to maintain scaling of plans and implementation schedules.
Support accountability through coordinating project implementation, monitoring and evaluation and reporting.

Basic Qualifications

Master’s degree in relevant field, including but not limited to Business Administration, Agriculture, Agribusiness or Agriculture Economics, Marketing/Marketing and Value Chains, Environmental Science/Climate Science and Cooperative Management
Minimum of three years relevant work experience with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of two years relevant field-based experience in Business Administration, Agriculture, Agribusiness or Agriculture Economics, Marketing/Marketing and Value Chains, Environmental Science/Climate Science and Cooperative Management
Minimum of five years of relevant field-based, business, program and/or MEAL management, at least three years of middle/senior management experience.
Experience in contributing to successful proposals, reports, strategic alliances, project design, project management, and monitoring and evaluation.
Experience in partner capacity strengthening, staff development, training, and mentoring, as well as in team building and strategic planning initiatives. Experience working with Church partners a plus
Experience in project grants management, including project design, budget preparation, expenditure tracking, monitoring and evaluation, reporting, etc., preferably for donor-funded projects is a plus.
Experience with successful business development activities capturing public and/or private donor funding.
Demonstrated experience engaging with or managing private sector business or public-private partnership with multiple stakeholders.
Experience Business model development and other agriculture innovations is a plus.
Must be able to work under minimum supervision and be able to engage with various stakeholders including government, church, and community-based agents.

Required Languages – English and Kiswahili both spoken and written. Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 40 % of the time.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Excellent strategic, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment and decisions.
Highly analytical with a strong data orientation. Ability to analyze data, develop reports and present data in visually compelling ways.
Strong business and financial modeling experience.
Strong relationship management Ability to relate to people internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
Team and relationship building abilities.
Proactive, resourceful, solutions oriented, and results oriented.

Preferred Qualifications

Excellent English writing skills.
Experience and abilities in capacity strengthening – developing curricula and facilitating trainings.
Experience using MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, and knowledge sharing networks.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

Integrity
Continuous Improvement & Innovation
Builds Relationships
Develops Talent
Strategic Mindset
Accountability & Stewardship

Supervisory Responsibilities: None Key Working Relationships:

Internal: Head of Office Mbeya, CM, HoP, MEAL Coordinator

External: Local authorities (LGA) , private sector and church partners

***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need. CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.