Agricultural Extension Agent

 

USAID Feed the Future Tajikistan Agriculture and Land Governance (ALG) Activity

SCOPE OF WORK

 

Organization:                            EFCA-Tajikistan

Position:                        Agricultural Extension Agent

Location:                       Tajikistan, Khatlon region, Bokhtar office

Reporting to:                  C2 Team Leads

Announcement date:                  13 April 2022

Close date:                      04 May 2022

 

 

The Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA) – Tajikistan is committed to activating the potential of civil society and its institutions to contribute to national and regional development in the areas of climate change and rural resilience, gender equality and women's empowerment, anti-radicalization and conflict prevention, civil society development and good governance, youth empowerment and education, rule of law and anti-corruption. (www.ef-ca.tj).

 

Project Background

The Feed the Future Tajikistan Agriculture and Land Governance (ALG) Activity is a USAID funded 5-year activity that will assist the Government of Tajikistan (GOT) to sustainably reduce hunger, undernutrition, and poverty of smallholder farmers by developing more productive and efficient agriculture systems, building the resilience of smallholder farmers and improving the enabling environment to facilitate sustainable and long-term agriculture-led growth. It contributes to the USAID Global Food Security Strategy’s (GFSS) top-line goals of accelerated agriculture-led growth, better nutritional outcomes, improved food security, land tenure security, greater resilience, and better water security.

 

ALG Activity will implement an inclusive market systems approach to strengthen Tajikistan’s agricultural systems, engaging with local and regional private sector actors to develop and expand market opportunities and work with government and civil society to drive systemic reforms in the enabling environment for agriculture that allows smallholders and private sector firms to invest and upgrade land through improved registration and administration. Of equal importance, ALG Activity will ensure that women, youth, and vulnerable groups in remote areas in Khatlon are not left behind in the climb, integrating them into market-led opportunities in processing, value addition, and livelihood diversification while deepening their resilience through nutrition-sensitive crop adoption and behavior change. Combined, these efforts will enable Tajikistan to strengthen its journey to self-reliance and reduce its overreliance on remittances.

 

The activity purpose will be achieved through the following components:

Component 1: Enhance productive agriculture systems

Component 2: Strengthen the resilience of vulnerable smallholders

Component 3: Improve the enabling environment

 

1.     Responsibilities of the Agricultural Extension Agent

 

The Agricultural Extension Agent will provide technical support to ALG’s Component 2 Strengthen the resilience of vulnerable smallholders’ activities. The objective of Component 2 Strengthen the resilience of vulnerable smallholders by promoting on- and off-farm economic opportunities and integrating women, youth, and other vulnerable groups in agricultural and livelihood activities to diversify households’ income and enhance sustainability. Improving climate resilience through access to and use of climate risk information, natural resource management, and improved irrigation services for smallholder farmers.  Component 2 will work to mitigate risks and ensure that the agricultural-led economic growth from Component 1 is not undermined by shocks and stresses pushing households back below the poverty line.

 

The Agricultural Extension Agent will provide technical support by improving stakeholder access to high-quality extension services and strengthening the sustainability of the extension system by improving embedded extension services of offtakes, input providers and with on farmer activities with small grant technical supports.  Agricultural extension agent often provides consultation with farmers and agricultural businesses. In these consultations, they give talks, guidance and actual demonstration on the latest technologies related to agriculture and on how they can take advantage of such technologies.

The Agricultural Extension Agent will provide technical support to component 2 will promote on- and off-farm economic opportunities to further increase and diversify households’ income and mitigate risk and sub-Component 2.3 will strengthen the integration of women, youth, and other vulnerable groups in agricultural value chains.

 

1.     Detailed List of Tasks

The Agricultural Extension Agent will perform the following tasks:

·       Assess and identify knowledge gaps and at household level and small farmers

·       Provide technical support in establishing and managing knowledges plots on improved technologies and planting crops.

·       An agricultural extension Agent directly works with farmers and companies related to agriculture.

·       Primary role is to aid these groups to make better decisions to increase agricultural production.

·       Extension Agent is constantly armed with the latest techniques and information related to agriculture and they relay this information to farmers and agricultural business.

·       Work on agriculture food processing activities and provide technical support at household level.

·       Provide learning experiences that will empower people to improve community members lives/ 

·       Support the Agriculture activities of Component 2 special for subcomponent 2.1 and sub- component 2.3.

·       Answer questions of residents regarding your field of expertise.

·       Participate in the development of project strategies, plans, assessments, and reports.

·       Support the Environmental Specialist with the completion of the Environmental Review Check (ERC) list to ensure the activity complies with environmental, health and legal regulations.

·       Other duties requested by Sub-component Component 2.

 

 

2.     Qualifications

·       An advanced University Degree (Bachelor/Master’s degree) in agriculture or equivalent in agriculture extension service experience.

·       Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience, particularly experience related to working in rural communities of Khatlon region.

·       Experience of introducing improved technologies through experiments/demonstration plots, training modules, etc. required.

·       Sound knowledge of local agricultural production, post-harvest, and storage practices at home level.

·       Excellent communication skills in Tajik, Uzbek written and oral communication skills.

·       Good understanding of the business and market concepts.

·       Good command of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

·       Basic communication skills in English (oral and written) are desirable.

·       An energetic, forward-thinking, and creative individual with high ethical standards and appropriate professional image.

 

3.     Level of effort

This position is full-time with 8 working hours per day or 40 working hours per week. The employment contract will be on a yearly basis, with possible extensions until the close of the project. The Agricultural Extension Agent reports Component 2,  Team Lead. The position will be based in Bokhtar, with travel to priority ALG Activity provinces and districts as needed. Preference will be given to the applicants from the Khatlon region.

 

Application instructions:

Applicants meeting the above requirements are requested to submit a Cover Letter along with their Curriculum Vitae by email to 

TajikistanALGRecruitment@dai.com

 Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as interviews will be conducted soon. Please note, due to the volume of applications that we receive and the urgency to fill-up positions only shortlisted applicants will receive notifications on next steps.

 

Interested candidates should submit their application no later than
May 04, 2022

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