Staple Crops Technical Director at Land O Lakes

Position Summary and Primary Responsibilities:

The Staple Crops Technical Director will support the overarching technical approach for staple crops activities. Specifically, this position will coordinate and manage all program activities related to crops markets systems from farmer productivity to local and international market opportunities. The program is expected to take a market facilitative approach, working through market systems actors. It is also expected that the program will emphasize household consumption of nutrition foods as part of the overall strategy.   This individual is expected to coordinate with the project senior management to integrate and coordinate activities relating to diversified crop production and post-harvest handling and its link to markets, employment, and nutritious food production.  

Technical

• Lead the start-up, implementation, monitoring and adaptation of staple crops activities to increase productivity and market access, and improve access to and use of nutritious food through diversification of food production.
• Manage a team of technical staff and work with local implementing partners to achieve project deliverables.

• Lead market system assessments and design strategies for implementation that facilitate increased private sector engagement in value chains and accomplish program goals for the benefit of farmers.

• Build relationships with key market players to facilitate improved access to inputs and increased market opportunities for farmers.

• Develop technical materials, in collaboration with technical advisors and possibly outside consultants, to further project activities, objectives and results.

• Manage and oversee training in crops production for various stakeholders;

• Train and oversee partners, agricultural extension officers and community volunteers who deliver household outreach and group training.
• Regularly travel to field site locations to lead the start-up, manage implementation, and in coordination with M&E staff, the monitoring of project activities.
• Oversee and contribute to the design of assessments in order to guide program design, implementation, monitoring and adaptation.

Operational

• Provide timely and accurate written and verbal reporting.
• Contribute to project strategic planning and to well-written, focused project reports, annual implementation plans, success stories and other written products.
• Ensure high quality project implementation, monitoring and reporting.
• Make regular field visits to monitor project quality and collect data.
• Collaborate with M&E staff to ensure that collection and analysis of data is accurate, rigorous and incorporated into project implementation. 
• Coordinate with other technical leads in work planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting, and adaptation.

Reporting & Supervision:

The Staple Crops Technical Director will report to the Chief of Party.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• MSc in agriculture, horticulture, crop production or a related field with 10+ years of implementation experience;
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant field experience with an international organization in crop production programming.
• Strong technical grasp of crop diversification techniques, environmental strategies, and natural resource management.
• Significant knowledge of crops market systems, food security, nutrition and gender issues in Kenya.
• Experience, knowledge and skills in improved crops production.
• Experience in agribusiness development preferred.
• Experience in systems strengthening, capacity building, service delivery, and quality improvement is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in project and time management.
• Demonstrated experience in working effectively with CSOs and community-level actors, stakeholders and beneficiaries.
• Experience applying and knowledge of the design, implementation and best practices for promoting behavior change and adoption of improved practices and technologies in agriculture and crops programming, including training of trainer activities and development of training materials.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations and independently.
• Familiarity and understanding of donor policies and procedures is a plus.
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English required.