Job Description

The specific duties of the Horticulture/Agronomist Expert

Under thedirect supervision of Regional Project Manager, the Agronomist’s overarching duty is to see to it that the horticultural and crop productivity in Kunzilawatershed is enhanced and livelihoods options diversified.

Specific duties and responsibilities include:

• Assess state, constraints and potentials of crop and horticultural crop production in the Kunzilawatersheds,
• Identify suitable and marketable horticultural crops including fruits, vegetables, and nuts and introduce in the watersheds
• Identify suitable field crops – a crop (other than fruits or vegetables) that is grown for agricultural purposes; “cereals, oilseeds, and pulses etc.,” and support its introduction and proper implementation,
• Design introduction modalities of new potential horticulture and crop varieties( by implementing in a clustered approach) using Farmers Research Groups, Farmers Field Schools, demonstration plots, homesteads and scaling up strategy,
• Exhaustively design and implement toinvolve (aggressively) landless rural youths in horticultural(vegetables specific) related activities through FFS modalities,
• Participate in the integrated watershed management plan preparation and development of an inbuilt exit strategy and make sure the horticulture/crop/agronomy parts are well covered.
• In collaboration with the IWM expert and all other project staff establish model nursery sites and develop a plan on type of fruit seedlings that will be grown in each nursery and develop guideline on their agronomic requirements,
• Prepare plantation design guideline based on the fruit tree type, apply multistory method around homestead to make small area more productive and follow its implementation,
• Establish mother trees as source of scionsand seedlings for grafting,
• Identify and disseminate simple farm machineries to the community,including for land preparation, preserving, transportation, and value addition,
• In collaboration with irrigation specialist, design and scale-up irrigation water technologies (manual tube hole, rope and washer pump, hand dug wells and etc…) that can enable farmers in the watershed to engage in HV fruit and vegetable crops,
• Establish and follow horticultural producer and marketing cooperatives/groups and link them to potential markets both locally and internationally
• Prepare and implement out grower schemes/modalities and link horticultural producers with investors at Kunzila and potential cooperatives.
• In collaboration with livelihood and livestock expert, plan and implement nutrition sensitive agriculture in the project area,
• Produce postharvest product management protocol for major horticultural; and field crops and follow its implementation
• In collaboration with relevant stakeholders, design and establish road side fruit marketing sheds and potential agricultural product markets in the project area,
• Prepare training materials for experts and farmers and train them as per approved action plan
• Regular monitoring and evaluation on private and together with team members,
• Prepare clear plan and submit monthly, quarter, six month and annual progress reports, on the scheduled time for the nearby supervisor,
• Carefully document activities/progresses achieved/ before, during implementation and results after intervention for learning and future improvement of project implementation (both pictorially and textually),
• Undertake other appointed responsibilities and duties by the hierarchies,

Job Requirement

Qualification and Experience: the horticulturalist is expected to have an MSc degree or above on horticultural husbandry, agronomy; MSc+5 years or above or PhD +2 years or above; and a minimum of two years experience working with communities. Knowledge and working experience in the region is an advantage.

Duty station, Contract Duration and Salary Scale:Duty station is Bahir DarTown(and/or Kunzila Town)with frequent travel to project sites and occasional travel to HQ at Addis Ababa. Contract will be one year with possible extension upon performance, and salary will be as per the project scale

How to Apply

Interested and qualified applicants fulfilling the above criteria for the different jobs can make online registration by visiting http://wlrc-eth.org/vacancy site and upload all necessary documents including their CV as per the specification in the website before June 20, 2020. For clarification, the applicant can ask  by telephone +251 918 350 939 or

send an e-mail to [email protected]

Any application that is outside the specified criteria will be disqualified. Those eligible for exam will be notified by e-mail and list will be released through the above website. Cost of application and exam will be covered by the applicants themselves, WLRC will not be responsible for this.

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