The International Potato Center is looking for a dynamic and highly skilled Agronomist-Consultant who will provide technical support in sweet potato agronomy to the sweet potato program through various projects and initiatives in Kenya and Eastern Africa Region. He/she will also contribute to the design and direct implementation of a sustainable sweet potato seed systems in Kenya and countries within CIP Eastern Africa region to ensure and assure affordable, accessible and quality sweet potato planting material needed to scale up the orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in the implementation countries.

Objective

• 1 Provide technical support in sweet potato agronomy to CIP projects and initiatives in Kenya and Eastern Africa Region as well as Packaging of sweet potato advisory content using various format for various farmer facing organization using human centered design.
• Contribute to the design and direct the implementation of a sustainable sweetpotato seed systems strategy that will assure quality and accessibility of sweetpotato planting material for production and commercialization of the sweetpotato value chain
• Design and implement a working, cost-effective and timely planting material dissemination approaches and root production plans with partners to enhance OFSP production among households both for food and nutrition security as well as commercialization.
• 4Work and collaborate with national government partners, KALRO and other stakeholders to initiate, coordinate and manage the National Performance Evaluation (NPTs) and varietal release process for developing commercially viable OFSP varieties, development  and dissemination of Early Generation Seed (EGS).
• 5 Participate in the development and, where possible, delivery of appropriate training modules in priority topics such as production, agronomy, post-harvesting management etc. The training will target sweetpotato value chain actors including farmers, extension agents, aggregators, processors etc.
• 6    Provide support to the project team by facilitating timely, accurate and routine data collection required for project reports.
• Working with other stakeholders and colleagues to develop linkages and contribute to online platforms for the exchange of information about OFSP for widespread adoption.