Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist

TechnoServe is seeking a Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist for the StreFas Project in Nigeria, aimed at enhancing resilience in smallholder farmers through climate-smart grain production. The role involves providing technical support and oversight to promote regenerative agricultural practices, focusing on crops like maize and rice. The position is based in Kaduna and requires upskilling farmers to adopt sustainable practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Job Title: Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist

Project: Strengthening Farmers & SME's Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production in Nigeria (StreFas)

Reports to: Program Manager

Location: Kaduna

About TechnoServe

Everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better future. This simple idea has been at the heart of TechnoServe’s work around the world for over 50 years. TechnoServe is a pioneer in leveraging the power of business and markets to create sustainable pathways out of poverty.

The low-income communities in which we work are full of enterprising people. Their small-scale farms and businesses are the keys to economic development. But they face many challenges: low literacy, lack of access to jobs and markets, unpredictable political dynamics and, increasingly, the effects of climate change. For many women and young people, the challenges are even more daunting. Working with TechnoServe staff, people around the world are lifting themselves out of poverty. The results are amazing…when incomes increase and living conditions for families get better, they can access health care and education previously out of reach. Communities and even whole countries are better off.

Program Overview

The StreFas Project aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions through regenerative agricultural practices and at the same time develop an inclusive, sustainable, scalable, and adaptable regenerative agriculture solution to help smallholder farmers (SHFs) and local SMEs (aggregators) be more resilient and produce low-carbon grains in Nigeria. The three-year project will provide a guaranteed structured market for farmers to produce high-quality grains yearly, with a significant quantity of grains produced from environmentally sustainable practices. The project aims to impact up to 25,000 SHFs directly as beneficiaries of the program. Importantly, StreFas will sustain and scale up the successful elements of the regenerative agriculture pilot of the Developing Inclusive Grain Value Chains in Nigeria (DIGVCN) project.

Job Summary

The Senior Technical Agriculture Specialist -Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production in Nigeria (StreFas) will work under the supervision of the Program Manager to provide overall project technical support to the StreFas team in Kaduna and Nasarawa States and the goal is to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through regenerative agricultural practices. This goal will be achieved primarily through upskilling Maize, Rice, Sorghum, and Soybean farmers in regenerative agricultural practices. S/he will provide technical support to facilitate farmer behavioral change from conventional agriculture to regenerative and climate-adapted agriculture. The tasks outlined below are the key responsibilities of the employee, however, s/he will be expected to perform other tasks that are necessary within the context of the evolving needs of TechnoServe’s Agricultural portfolio.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:
• Provide technical oversight of the project’s interventions related to the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions through regenerative agricultural practices. S/he will be the technical lead facilitating activities aimed at achieving farmer behavioral change from conventional agriculture to regenerative and climate-adapted agriculture.
• Work with the Program Manager to engage the relevant practice teams internally to get maximum support that ensures the successful delivery of the project.
• Optimize team technical competence and ensure that members are adequately capacitated to conduct their respective project activities and upskilled in critical areas of the project such as regenerative agricultural practices and carbon credit calculations. Mentor and build the technical capacity of field staff on regenerative agricultural practices.
• In collaboration with the Program Manager, develop training curriculum for farmers and coordinate all required training, including training-of-trainers (ToTs), and ensure all training manuals are updated throughout the life of the project.
• Work closely with the Program Manager and the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) specialist to ensure proper and timely reports of the program for internal communication and action. Support the sharing of best practices and lessons learned from the project and program communication activities.
• Adapt project approaches, as needed, to reach targets and milestones related to GHG Emissions reduction and mitigation targets and the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices.
• With the MEL Specialist to assess the impact of the project’s interventions and ensure high-quality data is being collec