One Acre Fund / TUBURA Agricultural Station Manager Job Vacancy in Rwanda

Agricultural Station Manager Job Description

Industry:
Nonprofit/International Development
Employer:        One Acre Fund / TUBURA
Job Title:          Innovation
Station Manager
Job Location:  Rural Rwanda (Kinyarwanda required, French or English
required)

Organization Description

One Acre Fund (known as
TUBURA in Rwanda) is a start-up NGO in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi that is
innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential.
Instead of giving handouts, One Acre invests in farmers to
generate a permanent gain in farm income. We provide farm

ers with a
“market bundle” that includes education, finance, seed and
fertilizer, and market access. Our program is proven impactful – every year, we
weigh thousands of harvests and measure more than $100 of impact per client. We
are growing quickly. In seven years, we have grown to serve 135,000 farm
families with more than 1400 full-time field staff. In three more years, we
will at least triple in size, while adding several new countries. Website: www.oneacrefund.org

The Innovation team is
responsible for finding, testing, and developing new products and services to
improve the impact and quality of our program.

Job Description
Until this year Tubura has only operated a small and rather informal agricultural
research station near its headquarters in Rubengera. In the coming season we
are interested in expanding our station trials to a larger area, setting up a
larger station of between 0.5 and 2 hectares (TBD), also located in Rubengera,
Karongi. We are looking for a candidate with a strong agronomic background and
experience leading trials in the past to play a major role in establishing and
then managing our new station. Responsibilities will include:

A. Design of
station, establishment of trials: The candidate will assist
in selection of the best trials to run on the station including identification
of priorities, selection of variations, mapping the best configuration for
organizing the station plot, running initial tests on soil and other variables
and collecting field history of the station land, etc. The candidate and his or
her team members will then help to cultivate the land, plant crops for the
trials, plant trees for long-term perennial trials, and apply fertilizers,
cover crops, and other soil amendments as needed.

The types
of trials which the candidate will be expected to run include: a) comparisons
of different varieties of maize, beans, soybeans, bananas, cassava and other
crops, b) comparisons of different fertilizer regimes, including different
spacing, different quantities and different types, c) cover crop, mulching and
green manure trials, d) tests of different small-scale irrigation equipment, e)
banana macropropagation trials, f) intercropping trials with bananas, avocados,
macademia nut trees and other crops, g) trials on storage and marketing of
various crops.

B. Recruiting
and managing a team to run the station: The candidate will be
required to identify personnel needs (how many full time, how many daily
laborers) and conduct selections to recruit a strong team to help run the
station. The candidate would then be in charge of managing this team and
overseeing their professional development.

C. Collection
and analysis of trial data: The candidate and his or her team would collect
data from the station plots on a daily basis and submit for entry into the
computer. Any problems encountered during the season would be dealt with and
noted in the data collection. The candidate would help with the analysis of the
data at the end of the season, to reach conclusions on the different variations
and to generate recommendations for the wider Tubura program (new products to
consider selling, variations to test in a larger field-based trial).

Career Growth and
Development: One Acre Fund invests in building management and
leadership skills. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through
weekly mentorship and through regular career reviews. We also have regular
one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work
collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about.
Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up
and opportunities in many functions. This results in fast career growth for our
staff.

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional professionals with
demonstrated results in past work experience and a long-term passion for
international development. We are looking
for extraordinary candidates that are proactive; please only apply if you fit
these criteria:

Required

·
Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in an agricultural field

·
2 years+ work experience managing agricultural trials

·
Excellent computer (MS Office, internet), mathematics,
and data analysis skills

·
Strong work experiences; should have managed others in
the past.

·
Top-performing in past education. Please include test
scores and grades on your resume.

·
Fluent in Kinyarwanda, Fluent in either French or
English

·
Proven interest in rural farmers

·
Clear communicator

·
Proactively solves problems

·
Demonstrates high quality work with a strong attention
to detail

·
A willingness to commit to
living in rural Rwanda for a long term position (at least 3 years)