Cereal Field Production Specialist

Organizational Setting

The post is located in Mozambique, in the provinces of Manica and Nampula - GCP/MOZ/127/EC - Improving rural competitiveness is operating in provinces where the project will be implemented by FAO Representation in Mozambique. The overall objective is to contribute to sustainable, inclusive and broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction in the context of national food and nutrition security and climate change.

The FFS component in each project aiming at market-driven sustainable agriculture and resilience, to enhance production systems sustainability in its most comprehensive sense – environmental, social and economic. The results of this component are increased productivity based on sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices; increased volume and value of production for markets, and improved nutrition and food safety knowledge and practices at community level. Through Participatory Extension Methodologies, the incumbent will contribute building capacity on farming and business of smallholder farmers, strengthening of group cohesion, empowerment of women to efficiently manage their crucial role as farmers, mothers and caretakers.

The FAO intends to recruit a Cereal Field Production Specialist to support the implementation of programs coordinating the activities carried out by the FAO´s district field technicians and the technicians of the implementing partners, under close collaboration with the International FFS Specialist based in Maputo.

Reporting Lines

The Cereal Field Production Specialist will report directly to the Technical Advisor for project, in close collaboration with the Hub Coordinators.

Technical Focus

Rural Extension, Cereals crop production and climate smart agriculture (CSA).

Tasks and responsibilities

The Cereal Field Production Specialist will be responsible for the development cereals production, operational planning, management and monitoring of all activities with partners. S/he will also provide regular backstopping for the provision of technical and management support to Cereals production facilitators to monitor Cereals groups performance with the aim of increasing the production and quality of Cereals in line with project objectives with emphasis on:

Food security

• Strengthen basic seed production: In Manica and Nampula Provinces seed producing companies may be contracted to produce the needed basic seeds for cereals.
• Strengthen certified maize seed production in Manica and Nampula contract seed producing companies to supply certified seed to be used on cereals food production.
• Support production intensification in order to promote a sustainable increase in the productivity by effective use of fertilizers.
• Provision of support to effective risk-share and de-risk private driven aggregation and geo-cluster schemes for dedicated value chains, to further improve and scale the inclusion of smallholder farmers.
• Roll-out of a smart subsidy model for milling and other small scale agro-processing.

Improve nutrition

• Expand the home gardening intervention focusing mainly on vegetables, fruits, legumes and staple foods such as cassava, orange sweet potato and yellow maize.
• Promote home gardens with nutrition education package to enable households to give more importance to home grown food.
• Expanding the school garden intervention to strengthen nutrition education and diversified agriculture by producing more diverse foods to reduce dependence on imported and marketed foods.
• Support community nutrition education in order to guide them towards behavioral change in improving the dietary diversity of the family, with special emphasis on the infant and young child.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in Agronomy, Rural Extension or other related subjects.
• Five years of relevant experience in Rural Extension. Relevant background experience on technical areas related to crop production, value chain approaches and market-oriented production.
• Working knowledge of English, and fluent in Portuguese.
• Working knowledge of the local language spoken in Manica and Nampula provinces.
• National of Mozambique.

FAO Core Competencies

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

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION