Summary

The Junior coffee Agronomist will be responsible for providing excellent and timely advice on all aspects related to Uganda coffee yields, production, rain pattern and issues related to it through regular visit, field inspections of crop, soil etc.

Main

Responsibilities

Along with the below listed responsibilities, the employee should conduct any other business related to the function as required by his supervisor.

Identify, on-board and Train farmers.

Offer professional and timely Agronomy advice and support to coffee farmers on behalf of the company i.e planning crop rotations, crop variety selection, review soil test reports and develop fertilizer management plans and seeding plans.

Conduct field inspections to identify/show soil or coffee crop problems and provide such reports to management immediately after these field inspection during the growing season.

Make projections of potential crop yield per season and share the same with management.

Conduct soil sampling, testing and interpretation and share knowledge about soil fertility, fertilizer management, weeds, registered herbicides, diseases, registered fungicides, insect pesticides for coffee crop and any other emerging trends/important information in coffee agronomy.

Plan,organise and execute regular crop tours in order to estimate the production using

• High quality farmer interviews and
• visual yield estimation

Estimate coffee areas by collecting data from

• official sources regularly
• Confirmation of area estimates through visual estimation of area changes
• Farmer interviews
• Gathering of information from third parties like research institutes, nurseries, state farms etc.

Highlight the risks to the crop estimate by working out various scenarios.

Assessment of the impact of various scenarios on yields and associated probabilities such as weather, pests, diseases and changing costs or supply of inputs or labour etc.

Close monitoring of weather developments and long term forecasts to update production estimates.

Conducting detailed cost of production studies

Conduct monthly stock surveys and Balance Sheet reconciliation.

Communication of the findings in the form of well-argued crop tour report

Source and analyse the secondary data and trade flow data on regular basis and contribute for BS review process and fully responsible for Coffee S&D Balance Sheet for the region.

Perform any other duty as maybe assigned by the Agronomist and procurement Manager for Coffee.

Experiences

Strong working knowledge in Coffee Agronomy. with rich experience of working in field with the farmers.

Working knowledge related to coffee crop and Uganda in particular is added advantage.

Very good knowledge of MS Office (in particular advanced Excel skills)

Strong presentation and communication skills in English and local Uganda local dialects

Willingness to travel upcountry for crop tours and farmer engagements

Skills

Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Computer literacy i.e. proficiency in MS office package.

Proven ability to collect, analyse data and prepare accurate reports.

Presentation skills.

Required Languages

• English (Fluent)
• Luganda (Fluent)

Required Education

The applicant should hold a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture; specialization in soil, plant or crop science or agronomy.