FAO: National Vegetable Production Specialist

Vacancy announcement No:11/2023

Issued on:

21 May 2024

Deadline For Application:

4 June 2024

Job Title:   National Vegetable Production Specialist

Type of requisition:

PSA.NAT

Duty Station:

Chisinau, Moldova

Organizational Unit:

FEMOL

Duration:

Up to 70 working days

FAO seeks gender, geographical and linguistic diversity in its staff and international consultants in order to best serve FAO Members in all regions.

Qualified female applicants and qualified nationals of non-and under-represented member countries are encouraged to apply.

Persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

Organizational Setting: FAO is implementing an emergency programme in Moldova to support vulnerable people living in rural areas with required agriculture inputs for the planting season and technical assistance on sustainable and resilient agriculture production through Farmer Field School (FFS). The aim of the Emergency Program is to mitigate the negative effects of the multiple crisis on agri-food systems. The activities will be implemented through three different projects with harmonized performance indicators and synergized outputs. The projects second output is to increase the capacities of small farmers to apply climate-smart agriculture and other innovative techniques in the vegetable and livestock sectors through FFS. 15 FFS farmers groups will be established in targeted district by the emergency program. Additional resources are being mobilised to continue the FFS activities beyond the timeframe of the emergency project.

Reporting Lines: Under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in Moldova, the technical supervision of the Agricultural Officer at the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, National FFS coordinator and in collaboration with Project team and the relevant service providers and partners. The Consultant will be provided with the necessary information, materials, and logistics for the fulfilment of his/her tasks.

Tasks and responsibilities:

This position implies providing expertise and training to vegetable farmers who are members of FFS groups established by the project. and in particular to apply the best methods in vegetable production, pest and diseases management, packaging and sorting as well as monitoring the implementation of these methods by the farmers.

Specifically, the vegetable production specialist will perform the following tasks and responsibilities.

In close collaboration with the Service Providers, participate in FFS events in the vegetable sectors and provide technical guidance as necessary:

• Develop technical production sheets, fertilizer application, pests and diseases management, harvesting, packaging and sorting as well as other related aspects presented in a manner accessible for people with no academic agricultural background;
• Deliver focused trainings to vegetable farmers in FFS in selected aspects of both theoretical and on farm programmes, on the basis of FFS farmers’ groups demands;
• Provide oversight to Service Providers for the design of FFS on-farm experiments and develop specifications for small equipment/material to support FFS groups in implementing and measuring the results of the experiments;
• Lead the development of social media platform to facilitate information exchanges between farmers withing and between FFS groups;
• Provide specialized technical support in the implementation of the project activities and supervision/monitoring of vegetable production methods, pests and diseases management and harvesting/packaging methods;
• Assist the Emergency Coordinator and LTO with required documents, arranging relevant meetings and facilitating field visits for external experts;
• Assist in the preparation of project reports, case studies, success stories;
• Perform any other duties required for the successful implementation of the project.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in agriculture, vegetable sector or economy
• Proved capacities in agribusiness and vegetable sector development.
• Proved experience of theoretic and practical topics in vegetable production methods, fertilizer application, pests and diseases management and harvesting/packaging methods etc  

Required skills.

• Training skills 
• Excellent computer competences (PPT)
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills  

Required language(s)

• Romanian
• English
• Russian

FAO Core Competencies

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

Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• FAO does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing).
• Applications received after the closing date will not be accepted.
• For other issues, visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, please send your CV with all relevant details to FAO-Moldova@fao.org by 4 June 2024 inclusive.

Vacancies will be removed from the recruitment portal at 23:59 Central European Time (CET) on the deadline for applications date. We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.

FAO IS A NON-SMOKING ENVIRONMENT