Background: Land O’Lakes’ Venture37 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-fork, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.
Our team is made up of nearly 350 employees who are committed to market-led approaches, and passionate about collaborating locally to create lasting inclusive economic growth. By unlocking the potential of agriculture for the last 36 years, the lives of more than 3 million people have been transformed through nearly 300 programs in more than 80 countries.
Project Description: The Safety and Quality Investment in Livestock (SQIL) project is an eight-year demand-driven project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that will improve food safety and quality along Georgia’s dairy and beef value chains. From farm-to-fork, SQIL aims to reduce losses, improve food safety and quality, boost competitiveness, productivity and trade within the Georgian dairy and beef market systems. The project achieves these goals through an integrated approach of expanding market access, improving sanitary standards, strengthening postharvest handling and storage, increasing productivity, improving access to finance, and promoting regulatory reforms.
Purpose and Objectives of the Assignment: The presence of endemic chronic diseases such as brucellosis, tuberculosis, and leucosis threaten the development of the livestock sector in Georgia. Georgia currently has in place a brucellosis prevention and control strategy which is successfully mitigating the spread of brucellosis in the livestock sector but does not have a control strategy in place for tuberculosis.
The SQIL project is seeking an international consultant to support the state veterinary service of the Georgian National Food Agency (NFA) to develop an animal tuberculosis control strategy and action plan for monitoring and mitigating the spread of tuberculosis in Georgia among cattle. The consultant will be responsible for reviewing the existing tuberculosis control measures in place and related legislation, developing in close cooperation with the NFA a tuberculosis control policy and 5-year tuberculosis control plan, and providing training to field veterinarians on conducting tuberculosis skin tests.
Consultant Tasks: To complete this scope of work, the Consultant is expected to complete the following task:
Deliverables: Under this scope of work, the consultant is expected to complete the following deliverables:
- Report on existing situation of tuberculosis in Georgia:
Inception report for the tuberculosis control strategy that should include at a minimum:
- Presentation of the proposed control strategy to relevant stakeholders to validate the approach and to receive feedback.
- Field training on tuberculosis skin tests for field veterinarians.
- Drafted tuberculosis control strategy that should include at a minimum the following sections:
- Presentation of the final draft of the tuberculosis control strategy to main stakeholders
- Final tuberculosis control strategy based on feedback from SQIL and the NFA
Requested Skills and Qualifications: The ideal candidate will present the following skills and qualifications:
Travel: Travel will be required to complete the scope of work. The number of trips will be agreed upon with the selected Consultant.
Evaluation Criteria: All received complete applications will be evaluated against the following criteria:
Application Instructions: Interested and qualified applicants should submit their CV, proposed daily rate, number of days for completing the scope of work and availability through the link below. The final number of days and international trips required will be agreed upon by Land O’Lakes and the selected applicant.
