Seed Systems-Associate Manager

Key skills

Trialing management

Crop demonstrations

Data Analysis

Stakeholder management

Additional/Preferred Skills

Govt liasoning

SeedTechnology

Preferred Qualifications

Masters in Agriculture

Associate Manager-Seed Systems

ICRISAT seeks applications from highly motivated and qualified professionals for the position of Associate Manager-Seed Systems to support the cluster of Seeds Systems under the Global Research Program Accelerated Crop Improvement. The incumbent will oversee the seed production and delivery projects and ensure quality outputs and data management.  The position is based in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandated crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on drylands and on protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit – www.icrisat.org

Responsibilities:

• Work closely with Principal Investigator of the projects to facilitate research, Implementation and partnership activities and assist in the different areas of projects in seed systems and crop breeding and their management life cycle.

• Liaise with project partners and officials at state, district, and block levels and coordinate the project activities efficiently.

• Take lead responsibility in ensuring fieldwork and database management and developing data collection tools with quality standards.

• Monitor and manage the strategic collaboration around seed systems and extension research by conceptualizing, designing, executing collaborative research to improve seed demand and develop effective mechanisms and partnerships for seed scaling.

• Assess progress and key indicators on the impact and quality of the project through the management and development of a gender data management system.

• Assisting the implementation, monitoring and evaluation by providing quality input and analysis from survey data and qualitative studies (as indicated by the project lead).

• Take a leading responsibility as a team member to develop periodic reports and tables, allowing program scientists to track their projects.

• Promote innovation models in extension and seed systems, identify gender- and market-responsive seed systems interventions and extension approaches for enhancing livelihoods, including demonstration of new varieties to generate demand and capacity building of local institutions.

• Ability to work as a team member in collaboration with DoA, OUAT, OSSC, OSSOPCA.

• Work closely with partners, facilitators, enumerators for executing surveys and various research-oriented interventions.

• Collaborate with NGOs, Community based institutions, women’s groups for developing effective and context specific seed systems that are gender-responsive.

• Conduct capacity building programs for SHGs, farmers and extension staff and updating of knowledge and research techniques to the rest of the staff working in the unit and keep updated on new research techniques or processes.

• Design, manage and monitor research activities including necessary protocols, research tools, data collection, analysis and interpretation

• Provide leadership for the implementation and growth of a high-impact research on seed systems on dryland crops

• Monitor and manage field technical staff for strengthening outreach programs, monitoring, evaluation, action research and experiments

• Writing quality reports, technical literature and research articles for publication

• Any other assignment as instructed by your supervisor.

Essential Qualification:

• Relevant experience of at least 8-10 years with a Masters in Agricultural Extension or similar field

• Strong quantitative project management skills and experience

• A high degree of personal organization and ability to work under pressure

• Ability to work with different nationalities and disciplines as a member of a diverse work team

• Proficiency in English and Oriya (written and spoken) is preferable.

General:

This is a contractual position for a period of 36 months.

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 25 December 2024 with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer