Good Agricultural Practices Expert/Trainer

In response to the current crisis in Syria, SIF want to extend its humanitarian response with a new food security project, aiming at scaling-up its emergency support to Syrian refugees and affected population and support the Lebanese Farmers. In view of the operation scale up, SIF is currently recruiting a Short Term Technical Consultant in HSSE to train women groups in the Shouf region.

The STTC will be under the line management of the Food Security and Livelihood Manager, or his designee.

I.MISSION CONTEXT

- Based on a SIF study on “Resilient Livelihoods for Farmers in Shouf Following the Syrian Refugee Crisis”, SIF designed a Food Security and Agricultural Livelihood project that aims at:

- Offering technical and financial assistance to farmers and rural women cooperatives in the aim to increase the added value of their products.

- vDevelop and support a marketing strategy for farmers and cooperatives

- Capacity empowerment for farmers and for rural women for a better quantitative and qualitative production.

The Project is part of a longer term strategy aiming at supporting and reinforcing capacities of local stakeholders, mainly farmers, local rural women cooperatives, and related governmental entities (MoA and MoPW).

II.MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES 

- Design and deliver training for farmers on Good Agricultural Practices in several villages of the Shouf region

I.OBJECTIVE OF THE CONSULTANT MISSION

General Objective

- The general objective of the consultancy is to train around 20 people on the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) so they can train others in the various villages on the same subjects.

Specific objectives

- Develop an appropriate curriculum and delivery for the ToT GAP and IPM

- Provide recommendations to SIF, underline gap, need and opportunities

- The expected outcomes of this consultancy are as follows

- The Project expects the consultant to deliver the GAP and IPM in a Training of Trainers (ToT) method to the participants (SIF staff, partners staff, stakeholders from public sector and NGOs, agricultural pesticides vendors in Shouf)

- All the participants at the end of the training should be able to train farmers

- The training has theoretical and practical part with field trips to organic farms or other farms as needed.

Main components of the training:

- Gaps in the field of agriculture in Shouf

- Risks and Hazards of current agricultural practices: hazards on the health, safety and environment

- Production: low yields, low production volumes, high production costs, lack of compliance with good agricultural practices, presence of multiple varieties (focus on fruits and vegetables of Shouf).

- Post-harvest operations: post-harvest facilities not complying with international standards, lack of innovation in processing, facility weak management capacities

- Marketing: information asymmetry, local consumers’ demand and preferences are not well communicated to the farmers, lack of visibility, advertising and communication for agribusiness operators

The Solution

- The trainer will work with the trainees in the following priorities to be finalized with the trainees themselves:

Increasing production volumes

- Training and support to Good Agricultural Practice as an essential mechanism to improve quality of production.

- Reduce harvest losses and improve the quality

- Introduction and promotion of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) including integrated pest management (IPM) in the project area.

- SIF Food Security and Livelihood projects expects that the trainees will benefit from the training to help farmers:

- Reduce the total amount of Agro-chemicals used by farmers and access new markets

- Develop good agricultural practices, including IPM, programmes

- Test and implement GAP practices including IPM programmes at the farm-level

Logistic

- The expert will take care of her/his transportation to the training locations

Reporting

- Reports directly to SIF’s Beirut Office, to the Food Security and Livelihood Manager. S/he will submit the following reports at the end of the training sessions:

- Share the curriculum with SIF to be validated and printed

- The final Narrative Report which includes: the number of beneficiaries, SWOT analysis of the context and trainees in general, suggestions and recommendations.

Person qualifications

- University certificate of agricultural engineering

- More than 10 years of experience in farming

- Track record of Organic agricultural practices and standards.

- Experience in plant protection (pre-harvest) 

- Previous experience in training on similar subjects

- More than 2 years’ experience with international organizations

- Experience in managing and supporting small and medium farms   

- Strong interpersonal skills and a supportive technical and communication style

- Strong command of Arabic (the training language)

- Knowledge of the Lebanese context in general and the mount Lebanon context in particular

- Publications in the domain are an asset

Ethic and professional practice

- Always respect of beneficiaries’ confidentiality

- Respect SIF’s Policies

- Address needs and requests in a professional way.

- Report any incident or act that causes any harm to beneficiary or to others.

- Help in ideas to support the team of the FS and Agricultural Livelihood

Work relationships

- Line manager: Food Security and Agricultural Livelihood Manager

Job conditions

- Remuneration:

- Starting date:

- Duration/ Type of contract: 7 Days / Service Provider

2 day curriculum preparation and validation

3 days training for around 20 persons, theoretical and

1 Day training Practical

1 day reporting and validation