Jobs at Maolkeki: Project Coordinator & Junior Agronomist

Project Overview:

Smallholder farmers in India are generally trapped in the vicious cycle of low productivity, high cost of credit and no market connectivity and, as a result, tend to be in subsistence farming mode. Standalone interventions in productivity enhancement or introducing high value crops without linking to markets is more detrimental as farmers would have incurred more on the cost of cultivation. Therefore, to increase the income of small farmers, integrated approach of increasing productivity, linking them to markets and also ensuring access to right inputs has to be adopted. Syngenta Foundation India has been following this approach since 2009 and has called it market-led-extension.

Syngenta Foundation India and MaolKeki Foundation have partnered to implement this model in Manipur. The main objective of this partnership is to increase the income of small farmers by introducing modern agriculture technologies, better agricultural practices and connecting farmers to markets.

Approach: Income of the small farmers can be increased by adopting a combination of three possible approaches: 1) reduce the cost of cultivation; 2) connect farmers to markets and ensure higher price for their produces; 3) and improve access to irrigation, thereby enabling farmers to take more than one crop in a year.

Change Agents: To achieve the main objective of increasing small farmers’ income by following various approaches based on broad principles of aggregation and scientific approach to Agriculture, a set of change agents has to ensure implementation of various activities. Change agents in this model are lead farmers.

Implementation: One farmer is trained as ‘lead-farmer’ to handhold 50 – 100 farmers in a cluster of 4-5 villages and acts as a one-stop resource provider for the knowledge related agricultural needs of small and marginal farmers. The Lead Farmer has to be a native of one of those 4-5 villages in the cluster and should have basic educational qualification (class-X).

Rural youth are carefully screened and shortlisted by Syngenta Foundation India and they undergo a 36 days residential training program on agriculture and entrepreneurship aspects known as ‘Agriculture Technology Assistants’.

For implementing the above-mentioned project in Manipur, the partnership is looking for Project Coordinator and a Junior Agronomist with the below mentioned desirables. The project will initially cover a small group of farmers in Esikha in Imphal East District and Toubul/ Khoijuman in Bishnupur District.

1.Project Coordinator

Location: Imphal area

Contract: Contract will be initially for one year and extended or made temporary based on the performance.

Compensation: Salary range of Rs.12,000 to Rs.15,000 per month. Travel and other expenses will be reimbursed as per the company policy communicated during screening process.

Description of role:

• The Project Coordinator has to train lead farmers, both in the classroom and field conditions
• The Project Coordinator has to attend various extension activities
• She/ He has to coordinate with State Government officers for various activities
• She/ He has to coordinate with banks and financial institutions for linking both farmers and lead farmers for the credit needs
• The Project Coordinator is also responsible for managing the Junior Agronomist on a day-to-day basis, ensuring the project objectives are being met, and must take the primary responsibility for regularly updating the project stakeholders

Eligibility:

• Knowledge in Agriculture or Horticulture
• Graduate or Post-Graduate
• She/ He should be willing to travel 50km – 100km a day to cover the project areas, engage with the smallholder farmers, and by local conveyance or two-wheeler
• The person must be self-motivated and willing to work in a developing, unstructured, environment with a problem-solving attitude
• Strong relationship and communication skills
• This project demands fluency in Manipuri, Hindi and English with other local languages a plus
• Basic Computer skills is a must

Please send your CVs to contact@maolkekifoundation.org with the subject as “Project Coordinator – SFI-MKF Project”.

2. Junior Agronomist

Location: Bishnupur District (Toubul Khoijuman Area)

Contract: Contract will be initially for one year and extended or made temporary based on the performance.

Compensation: Salary range of Rs.7,000 to Rs.9,000 per month. Travel and other expenses will be reimbursed as per the company policy communicated during screening process.

Description of role:

• The Junior Agronomist must work closely with the Project Coordinator to train farmers, both in the classroom and field conditions
• The Junior Agronomist must organize and attend various extension activities
• The Junior Agronomist is also responsible for managing day-to-day relations with the farmers, following up with them regularly and ensuring they are following protocol and practicing the lessons learnt from the training

Eligibility:

• Knowledge in Agriculture or Horticulture
• Undergraduate degree
• She/ He should be willing to travel 50km a day to engage with the smallholder farmers, and by local conveyance or two-wheeler
• The person must be self-motivated and willing to work in a developing, unstructured, environment with a problem-solving attitude
• Good relationship and communication skills
• This project demands fluency in Manipuri, other languages a plus
• Basic Computer skills is necessary to communicate and enter data

Please send your CVs to contact@maolkekifoundation.org with the subject as “Junior Agronomist – SFI-MKF Project”.

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