District Field Technician

Organizational Setting

The post is based in Mozambique, specifically in the districts of Angoche, Malema, and Ribáuè in Nampula province, and Gurué and Namacurra in Zambézia, where the PROMOVE Agribiz project (GCP/MOZ/127/EC - Improving Rural Competitiveness) is being implemented. The overarching goal of this project is to contribute to sustainable, inclusive, and broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction, with a focus on national food and nutrition security, as well as climate change resilience.

At the field level, FAO will provide technical assistance to Implementation Partners, including District Services for Economic Activities (SDAE), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and Producer Organizations with legal status (Associations and Cooperatives). The goal is to support small and medium farmers (up to 10 ha) in increasing productivity through sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices, expanding agroforestry models, and improving the volume and value of marketable production. In addition, efforts will focus on enhancing nutrition and food safety knowledge and practices within communities.

To achieve these objectives, a capacity-building approach will be employed using Participatory Extension Methodologies, including Farmer Field Schools (FFS), and facilitating access to high-quality inputs through an e-Voucher system. District Field Technicians will be responsible for implementing activities in close coordination with technicians from the implementing partners, under the supervision of Hub Coordinators and Project Experts.

Reporting Lines

The District Field Technician will report directly to the Hub Coordinator, in close collaboration with the Project Experts, under overall supervision of the Technical Advisor.

Technical Focus

Participatory Extension Approaches, climate smart agriculture (CSA), agroforestry, e-Voucher, seed production, agri-business, nutrition and food safety.

Tasks and responsibilities

The District Field Technician will undertake the following tasks and responsibilities\:

• Map the Producer Organizations (Associations and Cooperatives) with the potential to become implementing partners for the project.
• Liaise among communities with Hub Coordinator and other Project Experts the implementation of Project activities.
• Coordinate with implementing partners the planning and execution of project activities at district levels.
• Supervise the activities implemented by the partners, ensuring efficiency, quality and transparency, according to the plans and Agreements.
• Interact as needed with SDAEs extensionist and other implementing partners.
• Contact community leaders, encourage farmers to become group members and train famers on resilient and sustainable farming, livestock practices and agroforestry systems.
• Identify farmers that meet with selection criteria and contribute with the Farmer Field School (FFS) Specialists to the organization of the training of farmer facilitators at district level.
• Guide the establishment of FFS groups and facilitate weekly learning sessions.
• Setup and moderate ordinary and extraordinary sessions of FFS network.
• Encourage and support FFS to adopt nutrition-sensitive agricultural approaches/practices such as mixed and rotational cropping with legumes, bio-fortified crops, small livestock and poultry
• Set up demonstration plots (demo plots) of improved varieties at the community level and organize field days in coordination with Seed Specialist at the Hub level.
• Support in the identification of seed multipliers and provide technical assistance in the field management.
• Prepare and follow up the seed inspectors’ visits in the different phases of certification of the seed multiplication fields.
• Train farmer groups though Farmer Business School (FBS) approach and link them to market
• Support selected farmer groups in the elaboration of micro-projects and follow up its implementation and management.
• Register beneficiary communities, groups and farmers into digital platforms as well as the activities carry out by the technicians and results achieved by the programme.
• Conduct sensitization and registration of farmers (small, medium and large) into the voucher scheme and monitor agro dealers during the implementation of the activities.
• Monitor the quality of agriculture inputs commercialized by agro dealers within the e-Voucher scheme.
• Provide support for the establishment of home and school gardens.
• Support the NGO partners in conducting sessions on nutrition, food preparation and food safety for mother care groups.
• Participate in the planning meeting, implement, follow up, monitor and evaluate the project activities at district level in accordance with the programme M&E strategy.
• Undertake collection and processing of data for georeferential monitoring, surveys, assessments, yield measurement and other project needs.
• Participate in monitoring programme’s implementation activities as per request of the M&E specialist (e.g.\: monitor technical assistance effectiveness, adoption of techniques learnt on FFS group, use of inputs, production and harvest, sales and trade).
• Follow-up of the Letter of Agreement planned activities and provide technical assistance to implementing partners.
• Contribute to project interventions gender mainstreaming and socio-economic empowerment of women.
• Perform other duties as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in Agronomy, Forestry, Agricultural Economics, Rural Extension, Livestock or other related subjects
• At least three years of experience in Rural Extension
• Working knowledge of English and the native tongues spoken in Nampula and Zambézia provinces
• National of Mozambique

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Selection Criteria

• Background experience on technical areas related to seed multiplication, value chain approaches, agroforestry, and market-oriented production.
• Computer skills (MS Office and Internet Explorer)
• Knowledge and skills to communicate in the native tongues spoken in Nampula and Zambézia provinces.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION