National Agronomist

Organizational Setting

FAO's office for Iraq is responsible for designing, promoting, implementing, and monitoring strategies aimed at enhancing food security, agricultural productivity, and rural development across the country. It works closely with relevant government entities and ministries to ensure its programmatic alignment with the national priorities and objectives.
The project "Adapting Rural Households in Southern Iraq to Water Scarcity Induced by Climate Change" (GCP/IRQ/073/CAN), funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), is implemented to build the resilience of vulnerable rural households particularly women to climate change risks.
The project, implemented in seven (7) southern governorates of Iraq, empowers smallholder farmers; both men and women by building their capacity in climate-smart agricultural practices through the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach, complemented with awareness raising and social behaviour change communication using the Climate-Wise Women methodology.

The services of a National Agronomist (Based in Karbala) will be required to plan, implement and monitor the Farmer Field School (FFS) activities across the three (3) southern governorates of Iraq\: Babil, Al Najaf, and Diwaniyah. The National Agronomist will also actively collaborate with key stakeholders, including the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture, Local Governments, Water Resources Departments, private sector entities, and development partners. This collaboration focuses on achieving integration and coordination of project activities, with a specific focus on implementing the Climate-Wise Women (CWW) component to promote awareness, capacity building, and social behavior change on climate change adaptation through climate-smart agriculture and resilient irrigation techniques.

Reporting Lines

Under the overall supervision of FAO Representative in Iraq, technical guidance of Deputy FAOR and direct supervision of project Technical Advisor (Water & Agriculture) supported by national technical field colleagues and technical units, the incumbent will perform the following tasks but are not limited to\:

Technical Focus

Farmers Field School (FFS) planning, implementation and monitoring in three (03) Governorates.

Tasks and responsibilities

The National Agronomist will fulfil the following objectives and responsibilities.
• Provide technical support to Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in the assigned governorates through field visits, technical backstopping of FFS facilitators, coordinators and relevant stakeholders under the technical guidance of International FFS Specialist, National Water Management Specialist and the Project Technical Advisor.
• Assist FFS facilitator(s) in developing season wise and village wise FFS plans including participatory prioritization of crops and selection of farmers for each FFS in line with FAO criteria while ensuring to incorporate climate-smart and sustainable practices suitable to the governorate(s).
• Devise action plan for the sustainability and expansion of the FFS approach to adjacent villages, and, where possible, organize mature FFS into formal crop- or commodity-specific cooperatives.
• Develop linkages of the FFS farmers with the services and facilities in farm management such as soil testing, seed certifications (if needed in case of cereal crops), plants pest and disease management, subsidies, incentives on inputs and support prices for crop produce.
• Identify top-performing FFS facilitators/coordinators, farmers and share their names for further capacity building as FFS trainers to ensure the sustainability of FFS through facilitation by local expert farmers for dissemination of knowledge and skills about climate smart crops production.
• Ensure timely collection and submission of baseline data on FFS and making follow-up to ensure FFS session reports are completed and shared using tools like Survey123 or Kobo Collect.
• Analyse and compile FFS outcomes especially Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), collective sales, purchases, and market linkages by FFS farmers with service providers.
• Assist FFS facilitators in establishing FFS curricula, including field/comparative experiments and special topics, while guiding the design of comparative experiments for each FFS in collaboration with FFS facilitators.
• Ensure proper implementation of FFS activities, including regular sessions, events like Open Field/Graduation Days, input distributions, and selection of service providers, while maintaining comprehensive records of all inputs distributed to the FFS farmers.
• Develop linkages of FFS groups to agricultural input suppliers and produce traders, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and private service providers including value chain actors for ensuring that the FFS farmers are in contact with service providers for sustainability, scaling and better access of farmers to inputs and other crop production resources.
• Assessment of current cropping practices and propose climate-smart, sustainable cropping patterns for FFS, demonstrating income-enhancing techniques for better CSA adoption in the assigned governorates.
• Identification and prioritization of climate smart packages in consultation with Agriculture Extension Department to the project National Water Management Specialist, Int. FFS Specialist and Project Technical advisor for validation and finalization.
• Assist the International FFS Specialist and National Water Management Specialist in conducting training needs assessment (TNA) for FFS facilitators/coordinators, developing a training action plan, and supporting the delivery of Training of Facilitators (ToF) for FFS Trainers.
• Provide support to the National Water Management Specialist in the installation and operation of micro-irrigation systems and plastic tunnels, and report on the successful outcomes and challenges about off-season vegetable production at the value-added designated sites.
• Identification of context (governorates) specific Information Education and Communication (IEC) materials and key extension messages on climate smart Farmers Field Schools (FFS) such as crops calendars, short video clips, flyers on quick agronomic wins, success stories and rewarding CSA practices and disseminate them during FFS sessions.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in agriculture (Agronomy/Horticulture/ Plant Crop Science/ Farm Management (or related technical disciplines),
• At least 5 years of experience in integrated agriculture and rural development projects, focusing on smallholder farming systems and FFS implementation and monitoring.
• Working knowledge of English
• National of Iraq.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Expertise in smallholder production systems.
• Excellent communication skills in English and Arabic with strong conceptual, analytical, and report-writing abilities.
• Expertise in crop production, crop rotation, high-value horticulture, orchard management, post-harvest practices, and integrated homestead gardening/FFS aligned with Iraq's agroecological systems.
• Strong knowledge of agricultural and crop sciences.
• Effective project management skills.
• Problem-solving and analytical abilities.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Knowledge of environmental and safety regulations and compliance.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION