The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:  Agronomist  

Organisation: South Eastern Private Sector Promotion Enterprise Limited (SEPSPEL)

Duty Station:  Busia, Uganda

About US:

South Eastern Private Sector Promotion Enterprise Limited (SEPSPEL) is a member-based nonprofit company limited by guarantee incorporated in 2003. SEPSPEL evolved from the Busia Private Sector Promotion Centre, established in 1998 by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a GoU/UNDP programme.

About SMAF Project:

SEPSPEL is seeking qualified candidates to fill the following positions in a 4-year project; “Small Holder Agric Financing Project(SMAF) Project that will be implemented in 10 Districts (Busia, Iganga, Mayuge, Butaleja, Tororo, Hoima, Masindi, Buyende, Namayingo and Bugiri Districts). The project’s primary goal is to ensure that smallholder farmers experience greater financial inclusion to improve their resilience.

Job Summary:   Reporting to the Project Manager, the primary role of this position will be to ensure that households are supported to become more food secure and that the nutritional needs of vulnerable children are met through dietary diversity and adopting hygienic and healthy practices, among other interventions. The job holder will support organized smallholder groups to increase their crop production, enlightening them on the need to balance the nutritional and economic values of specific crops and enhance post-harvest handling practices and optimal utilisation of crop yields.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Ensure that the farmers and farmer groups can access quality inputs through partnerships between input dealers, village agents, and farmers producing quality declared seed.
• Provide extension services to the farmers on the recommended agronomic practices, including the timing of planting, spacing, fertilizer, and other input applications and harvesting.
• Ensure that the farmers harvest at the right time and use the right technologies to minimize pre- and post-harvest losses and meet the quality expectations of the traders, processors, and exporters.
• Facilitate establishing and maintaining demonstration gardens and disseminating improved sunflower, soybeans, groundnuts and sesame technologies that can significantly increase the productivity of the resource-poor smallholder farmers through access to knowledge and skills needed to transform their farming practices.
• Facilitate increased adoption of improved, certified commercial oil seed varieties through demonstrations
• Mainstreaming cross-cutting issues including gender, HIV/AIDS, poverty, natural resource management etc, that impact sustainable commercial oil seed production.
• Working with and building the capacity of the Public Extension Workers and community extension workers to provide extension and other value chain services to the farmers and farmer groups.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicant must hold a master’s degree in agriculture, Agribusiness or any other related field.
• Two to five years of experience in food/nutrition security programs.
• Experience with donor-funded food security and nutrition projects for vulnerable communities will be an advantage.
• Knowledge of the Farmer field schools approach is a requirement
• Ability to provide technical support to community groups in improved agricultural practices and carrying out needs assessment processes with participatory approaches. Knowledge of the national food and nutrition security strategy and agriculture development programmes such as NAADS.
• Good knowledge of behavioural change communication on nutritional and feeding practices.
• Must be aged between 25 and above

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested persons with the above requirements should submit their CVs, including 3 referees and a table with salary history from your 3 most recent employers, Copies of relevant academic Credentials and an Application Letter addressing it to the Chief Executive Officer, SEPSPEL, P.O BOX 62, Busia or send it by email to both the following addresses: sepspel@yahoo.com

Deadline: 19th March 2024 5.00 Pm

Note: Only short-listed candidates will be contacted, and any form of lobbying shall lead to automatic disqualification.

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