Good Agricultural Practices Expert and Integration Pest Management /Trainer

The STTC will be under the line management of the Food Security and Livelihood Program Manager, or her designee.

MISSION CONTEXT

Based on SIF’s Food Security and Livelihoods Needs Assessment conducted in 2019 for the areas of Mount Lebanon and the North; SIF designed a Food Security and Livelihood project that aims at:

• Offering technical and financial assistance to farmers and rural women cooperatives in the aim to increase the added value of their products.
• Develop and support a marketing strategy for farmers and cooperatives
• Capacity empowerment for farmers and for rural women for a better quantitative and qualitative production.

The project is part of a longer term strategy aiming at supporting and reinforcing capacities of local stakeholders, mainly farmers, local rural women cooperatives, and related governmental entities (MoA and MoPW).

MAIN RESPONSABILITIES 

Design and deliver training for farmers on Good Agricultural Practices and Integrated Pest Management in several villages of Aley region

OBJECTIVE OF THE CONSULTANT MISSION

General Objective

The general objective of the consultancy is to train around 20 people on the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) so they can train others in the various villages on the same subjects.

Specific objectives

• Develop an appropriate curriculum and delivery for the ToT GAP and IPM
• Provide recommendations to SIF, underline gap, need and opportunities

The expected outcomes of this consultancy are as follows

• The Project expects the consultant to deliver the GAP and IPM in a Training of Trainers (ToT) method to the participants (SIF staff, partners staff, stakeholders from public sector and NGOs, agricultural pesticides vendors in Aley)
• All the participants at the end of the training should be able to train farmers
• The training has theoretical and practical part with field trips to organic farms or other farms as needed.

Main components of the training:

1. Gaps in the field of agriculture in Shouf

Risks and Hazards of current agricultural practices: hazards on the health, safety and environment

Production: low yields, low production volumes, high production costs, lack of compliance with good agricultural practices, presence of multiple varieties (focus on fruits and vegetables of Shouf).

Post-harvest operations: post-harvest facilities not complying with international standards, lack of innovation in processing, facility weak management capacities

Distribution: lack of formal agreements or contracts between farmers, distributors and wholesalers. Price information is not well communicated to farmers, farmers are not aware of the market prices and get only a small fraction of it

Marketing: information asymmetry, local consumers’ demand and preferences are not well communicated to the farmers, lack of visibility, advertising and communication for agribusiness operators

2. The Solution

The trainer will work with the trainees in the following priorities to be finalised with the trainees themselves:

• Increasing production volumes
• Training and support to Good Agricultural Practice as an essential mechanism to improve quality of production.
• Reduce harvest losses and improve the quality
• Introduction and promotion of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) including integrated pest management (IPM) in the project area.

SIF Food Security and Livelihood projects expects that the trainees will benefit from the training to help farmers:

• Reduce the total amount of Agro-chemicals used by farmers
• Develop good agricultural practices, including IPM, programmes
• Test and implement GAP practices including IPM programmes at the farm-level

Logistic

• The expert will take care of her/his transportation to the training locations

Reporting

Reports directly to SIF’s Beirut Office, to the Food Security and Livelihood Program Manager. S/he will submit the following reports at the end of the training sessions:

• The Narrative Report which includes: the number of beneficiaries, SWOT analysis of the trainees in general
• Recommendations

Person qualifications

• Degree in Agricultural Engineering

• More than 10 years of experience in agriculture and farming

• Track record of Organic agricultural practices and standards.

• Experience in plant protection (pre-harvest) 

• Previous experience in training on similar subjects

• More than 2 years experience with international organizations

• Experience in managing and supporting small and medium farms   

• Strong interpersonal skills and a supportive technical and communication style

• Strong command of Arabic (the training language)

• Knowledge of the Lebanese context in general and the mount Lebanon context in particular

• Publications in the domain are an asset

Ethic and professional practice

• Always respect of beneficiaries’ confidentiality
• Respect SIF’s Policies
• Address needs and requests in a professional way.
• Report any incident or act that causes any harm to beneficiary or to others.
• Help in ideas to support the team of the FS and Agricultural Livelihood

Work relationships

Line manager: Food Security and Agricultural Livelihood Program Manager

Job conditions

•      Availability: September 2019
•      Duty station: Aley, Mount Lebanon
•      Duration/ Type of contract: 5 days fixed price contract