Project Description:
Land O’Lakes International Development, the University of Minnesota (UMN), Stellenbosch University (SU), and Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) have forged an innovative partnership to establish the Center for Agricultural Transformation (CAT) as the central hub to catalyze Malawi’s agricultural growth. By leveraging our core partners’ scientific, technological and agribusiness expertise and deep regional connections, the CAT will forge integrated research-to-impact pathways that reduce productivity gaps between men and women and foster diversified, resilient and healthy smallholder households, particularly those transitioning from tobacco farming to alternative livelihoods.
The CAT will be a world class hub for creating, piloting, and scaling appropriate science, technology, and business models that will transform smallholder tobacco farmers’ lives and Malawi’s agriculture sector in general. This center of excellence aims to uniquely combine research, smallholder farming, and large-scale commercialization in a manner that facilitates transformational agricultural development in Malawi. We envision the CAT as an anchor institution in the global ag-tech innovation ecosystem, where reimagination, experimentation, and refinement of new ideas take place through the intermingling of cutting-edge research and development (R&D), market research, evidence-based decision making, new business models and product pilots, and entrepreneurs.
Position Summary:
The Agronomy Services Manager is part of the CAT Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) team and will be responsible for the successful management of CAT land used for trialing, demonstration and promotion of scalable technologies that can be used by farmers (including smallholders) to improve their productivity.
The Agronomy Services Manager will be responsible for coordinating, conducting and promoting demonstrations and product advancement trials (PAT) sponsored by potential private- and public-sector partners who want to use CAT land to showcase novel agricultural technologies for farmers and agri-service providers. The Agronomy Services Manager will be responsible for supporting relevant stakeholders throughout all of Malawi to make informed choices regarding the adoption of new technologies, especially farmers. As such, she/he will be responsible for providing overall product performance evaluations and product gap analysis for the identified demand-driven technologies.
Primary Responsibilities:
Reporting & Supervision:
The position will report to the Science, Technology and Innovation Director and will have up to two Agricultural Technician direct reports.
Required Skills and Qualifications:
Please submit a one-page application letter and three-page (maximum) resume.
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls will be accepted.
Land O’Lakes never requests money or payment from candidates for any position type. Please report any such requests to Land O’Lakes.
Since 1981, Land O’Lakes Venture37 has applied an integrated approach to international economic development that capitalizes on Land O'Lakes, Inc.'s nearly 100 years as a leading farm-to-market agribusiness. We use our practical experience and in-depth knowledge to facilitate market-driven business solutions that generate economic growth, improve health and nutrition, and alleviate poverty. We believe in the value of people and ensuring our work is rooted in honesty, integrity and respect.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, our vision is to be a global leader in transforming lives by engaging in agriculture and enterprise partnerships that replace poverty with prosperity, and dependency with self-reliance. Since our inception, we have implemented nearly 300 programs and training initiatives in over 80 countries, which have enabled farmers and agribusinesses to become more profitable and to leverage economies of scale through well-functioning cooperatives and producer groups.