Technical Officer (Integrated Soil Fertility Management, ISFM)

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT®, is a not-for-profit agricultural research and training organization with partners in over 100 countries. Please refer to our website for more information: www.cimmyt.org

The CIMMYT is seeking an experienced professional to support Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project funded by USAID. The project promotes the use of improved seeds and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) technologies approved and registered by the Government of Nepal. The Project will specifically increase availability of technologies to improve productivity in maize, rice, lentils, and high value vegetable farming. The project also works to improve capacity of both the public and private sectors in their respective roles for technology development and its in-country dissemination.

Technical Officer (ISFM) is responsible in promoting integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) practices and 4R’s of nutrient stewardship through agro-vet, agricultural cooperatives, local government, and development partners in the various project activities; arrangement of logistics, conduct field trials, demonstrations, farmer’s field days and trainings.

Duty Station: Kathmandu

Specific duties:

• Coordinate with Government officials (AKC, MoLMAC and Palika) and private sector at local level to implement project activities.
• Support the strengthening of local soil laboratories and soil testing activities from various locations in project sites.
• Support the development and distribution of soil health cards to target farmer groups.
• Organize training on maize and rice best management practices (BMP’s) in collaboration with cooperatives, and agro-vets.
• Carryout field activities under the maize commercialization model (MCM) and conduct effective networking and engagement with key project personnel from public, private and cooperatives.
• Conduct fertilizer trials and demonstrations with new fertilizer products such as Nano urea on NSAF targeted crops.
• Organize farmers field days (FFD) in demonstration plots to illustrate the performance of new fertilizers and compare with farmers practices. Collect and analyze farmers perception on new fertilizer products.
• Coordinate with cooperatives, GoN officials, agrovets, development partners at local level to scale out project BMPs’ and 4R’s nutrient stewardship to larger number of farmers. Visit and/or organize a regular follow up meeting with them to accelerate the dissemination of NSAF technologies.
• Monitor field activities and provide feedback to Senior Technical Officer at regular basis.
• Participate in periodic beneficiary-based survey (BBS) of the NSAF project, identify clusters and provide farmers list and supervise enumerators during field survey in respective districts.
• Assist in organizational surveys to capture targeted yield, area coverage, volume of sales through collaborators (cooperatives, agrovets, PMAMP sites).
• Promote the use of ICT tools (sms and app) to follow up the training activities so that project BMPs are disseminated to farmers.
• Document and share success stories from project sites.
• Screen field data (trials, demos, socio economic survey etc.) collected from ICT and Data Officer and submit the final cleaned data through Kobo-tool box (ODK).
• Compile of field staff report and submit on a bi-weekly basis as needed by project.
• Assist in project database management, preparing reports and paper publications.
• Perform other duties as and when required by the supervisor.

Required qualifications, skills, and attitudes: 

• Master’s degree in Agricultural sciences e.g., Agronomy, Soil Science, or related fields from a recognized university with minimum three (3) years of relevant work experience.
• Good knowledge with the concept of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), BMP, and 4R’s nutrient stewardships.
• Good proficiency in written and spoken English.
• The selected candidate should exhibit the following competencies: Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Client Orientation.

Candidates must go through the link below and submit the application with detailed information no later than January 4th, 2023.

https://cimmytrecruitment.wufoo.com/forms/n22243-technical-officer/

Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

Please note that only short-listed candidates will be contacted.