Technical and trainer agricultural expert

RMF is currently recruiting an experienced technical trainer and agricultural expert with expertise in specific businesses for a total of 75 farmers in North Lebanon (see below). The series of coaching sessions will take place as part of Shabake 2 project in North Lebanon.

The project aims to enhance economic development (medium-term), and food security (long-term), by engaging 75 farmers, and 12 MSMEs, in the North-Lebanon region, currently working on promising, food security enhancing agricultural value chains, with capacity building, in-kind support, as well as enhanced access to markets. Additionally, the project aims to fill in a market gap of essential crops, as the targeted value chains are considered one of the most essential nutritious crops for the human being planted in farmers’ lands in the area.

The targeted farmers will be supported through:

• Assessment of needs and opportunities, to generate tailored solutions resulting in greater impact
• Conducting general business and technical trainings, to ensure beneficiaries have increased qualitative and quantitative production, sales, growth, jobs and resilience
• Providing in-kind assistance, to ensure that farmers are more stable through increased investment in inputs, and equipment, contributing to productivity, better quality products, growth, economic diversification, job creation, reduced costs, and increased competitiveness in local markets

Ensuring business linkages and contract farming, so that a window to local markets is created, enhancing local products and services to replace imported ones, increasing jobs, translated to sustainable sources of income.

Job Description:

Activity 1 - Assess needs and identify training and support packages
In relation to farmers’ assessments, to ensure the impact of a tailored approach to identifying needs of farmers, the expert will conduct:

• One-on-one meetings: with each farmer to identify the existing gaps and needed in-kind support and competency levels of knowledge, skills and capacities in GAP. The assessment will be in the form of a digitized questionnaire that will focus on a SWOT analysis for each farmer, in-kind needs that support short-term reduction of production costs, and maintenance of production quality and quantity, in addition to medium and long-term needs supporting the adoption of GAP and production, to meet local diversified scaling up of business and growth.
• Cluster group assessments:  based on region and value chain so that the interventions are not sporadic yet complementary and achieve the desired effect.  In this assessment, focus will be made on value chain needs, complementarity between farmers and regions on diversified local production to meet needs and ensure local self-sufficiency that enhance resilience.
• Soil testing: RMF will be taking soil samples from farmers’ lands to identify the soil quality status of each farmer, and its impact on crops production, fertilization, pesticide use, organic matter concentration, and other factors.
• Following the assessment, each benefiting farmer will have a general report developed that will include the status and intervention area both in terms of in-kind support and capacities requirements, as well as desired outputs after project intervention.

Activity 2 -  Develop and implement a training package

In relation to farmers’ capacity building, based on general project and farmers tailored assessment reports, the expert will develop the training package. Farmers will be divided into groups of 15, as such, 5 groups will be engaged for a period of 6 days/group. The trainings will include:

Good Agricultural Practices (GAP): developed by the experts, to equip the farmers with adequate skills and knowledge through adopting the GAP concept. The GAP concept serves as a reference tool for each step in the production process, from soil preparation, variety selection, plantation, agricultural practices, irrigation needs, pest and diseases monitoring and control through Integrated Pest Management. GAP results in using appropriate practices to produce economically viable and safe crops. This will ensure proper and quality standard production and reduce costs to become more competitive. Topics will include but not limited to: Agricultural water use (pre and post-harvest considerations); Production issues related to soils; Usage of input supplies especially seedlings; Worker’s health and hygiene; Field equipment tools; Harvest and postharvest handling issues; Traceability, recall, and record keeping; Food safety; Proper use of fertilizers (Different kinds of existing fertilizers Organic, Bio-fertilizers and inorganic); How to follow appropriate guidelines and instructions according to labelling; Fertilizer recommendations (Application methods, storage, transportation and handling).

Furthermore, each farmer will benefit from 3 visits during the year by the agriculture expert. This will allow for farmers to be informed on the proper implementation of lessons learned on their farm.

As part of the assessment, a list of inputs and equipment will be identified and listed by priority for each farmer. The most important inputs and equipment will be selected based on budget allocation and impact such as job creation. A bill of quantity and technical specification will be developed by the technical experts

Activity 3- Linkages

Draft a one farmer cluster, showcasing the will and ability to cooperate and pool resources, in coordination with RMF management and assess the needed equipment.

Assist in conducting linkages to support access to markets of the targeted value chain products by mapping of existing markets at the local level including farmers market at community or municipal levels, and assisting in supporting in their promotion by conducting linkages between them, the farmers, and MSMEs, as well as and coordinating with local municipalities for promoting these markets.

Main duties of the expert:

• Assess needs and identify training and support packages for 75 farmers (One-on-one meetings, Cluster group assessments, soil testing advices)
• Provide a general report for each farmer that will include the status and intervention area both in terms of in-kind support and capacities requirements, as well as desired outputs after project intervention.
• Develop the training package based on general project and farmers tailored assessment reports
• Conduct the training sessions for the 75 farmers: Farmers will be divided into groups of 15, as such, 5 groups will be engaged for a period of 6 days/group. At the end of the sessions, the expert will present a report about the coaching and evaluation by assessing the material and the participants progress
• Provide a bill of quantity and technical specification for needed equipment: Identify and provide a list of inputs and equipment and list by priority for each farmer. The most important inputs and equipment will be selected based on budget allocation and impact such as job creation.
• Draft a one farmer cluster, showcasing the will and ability to cooperate and pool resources, in coordination with RMF management and assess the needed equipment.
• Assist in conducting linkages to support access to markets of the targeted value chain products by mapping of existing markets at the local level including farmers market at community or municipal levels, and assisting in supporting in their promotion by conducting linkages between them, the farmers, and MSMEs, as well as and coordinating with local municipalities for promoting these markets.
• Cooperate with project manager and field coordinator as required

Required competencies:

The agricultural expert is expected to have the following skills:

• Daily rate - weight = 20%
• At least 7 years of experience in the field of agriculture - weight = 30%
• Competency in delivering hands-on-support and trainings for farmers - weight = 20%
• Experience in coaching, training, assessing and reporting - weight = 20%
• Positive attitude, energetic and very strong communication skills - weight = 5%
• Excellent presentation skills - weight = 5%

In addition, we expect from expert a strong commitment to advancing the overall goals of the entire project and ensuring that the particular sessions are given as a coherent part of the entire program.