About Asili Agriculture
• What are we? Asili Agriculture is an integrated food security platform for East Africa.
• What is our purpose? To catalyze a more equitable, resilient and regenerative food system.
What is our mission? To deliver integrated agricultural land management & marketplace solutions that empower farmers and food system stakeholders to sustainably increase profitability, resilience and nutrition.
• What is our vision? A food system in harmony with nature that empowers farmers, nourishes communities, and creates local prosperity.
At our Hub Division, we operate the largest staple foods farming enterprise in Uganda on about 7,000 hectares. We also operate grain storage and trading activities serving over 15,000 farmers and supplying over 40,000 MT of food annually. Our Small-Scale Producer Services Division provides bundled services—agronomy, quality inputs supply, grain marketing and financial services—to small-scale producers (also known as smallholders). Our Enterprise Producer Services Division provides customized farming services to large landowners. Our Digital Division develops builds SokoAsili – a resilient food marketplace connecting all stakeholders – and implements digital solutions employed across our Hubs, SSP Services and EP Services divisions.
Today, we employ 230+ individuals and employ over 800 temporary employees.
Role Description
The FTA is part of the Asili team and has a double reporting line to the Producer Services Manager – head of the Business Unit Village Transformation Entrepreneur (VTE) Ops Manager – responsible for VTE field operations, reports to the Producer Services Manager (The VTE is an independent agent/trader supported by Asili to deliver productive and profitable land management and marketplace solutions to the producers in their respective communities).
FTAs are knowledgeable of agronomic production as well as business skills pertaining to a farming activity, from inputs and land management to harvest and post-harvest handling. They train bothVTEs and farmers, monitor their production and financial performance, facilitating their access to financial products for quality agro-inputs and markets.
Responsibilities
VTEs agronomic training
• The FTA trains new VTEs, provides regular refresher training to existing VTEs and backstops their agronomic advice to farmers, based on good agricultural practices (GAP) and relying on the broader Asili agronomy team for farming protocol updates and support. The FTA supports the VTE to engage with farmers in his/her network especially during planting and harvesting seasons, to promote and ensure quality input adoption and good post-harvest handling. Farmers agronomic training
• The FTA trains registered farmers in good agricultural practices (GAP), use and advantages of quality agroinputs such as improved seeds, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizer, ensuring uptake. The FTA, hand in hand with the VTE, provides intense hands-on support to farmers during the planting and harvesting seasons and intervenes when farmers need specific agronomic advice (e.g., pest or disease outbreaks). In addition, the FTA trains farmers on financial literacy, post-harvest handling, and quality control leading to a successful farming operation, from input planning and adoption to grain aggregation by VTEs.
Grain Sourcing on the Digital Marketplace (SokoAsili)
• Through the VTE, leveraging its farmer training relationship, the FTA also estimates and reflects in the Marketplace farmer grain delivery potential, both in terms of quantity and quality, communicating on the App with Asili’s grain collection centers. The FTA shall also train VTEs to conduct quality assessment leading to a successful grain aggregation.
Credit Scoring
• The FTA contributes to the creation and implementation of a credit scoring system for farmers based on agronomic and financial performance.
Credit Provision
• The FTA follows closely registered farmer performance and approves those proposed by VTEs to receive prefinancing for seeds and inputs, based on credit scoring. The FTA assists farmers and VTEs to identify input requirements. Credit Monitoring
• The FTA has a key role in managing farmer risk. The FTA monitors the utilization of the inputs and farmer loan repayment ability by monitoring their crop performance. FTA supports loan restructuring, where needed.
• Loan Recoveries
• The FTA has a key role in supporting loan recoveries. The FTA supports VTEs in determining the reasons for farmers’ failure to repay loans. In the event of character-related issues, the FTA shall support accordingly by taking the lead on the next course of action as per the business unit’s Credit Policy.
• Grain sourcing from SSPs
• The FTA shall oversee and support the VTEs to source for quality grain that meets the agreed quality thresholds, by supporting post-harvest handling and, among others, ensuring weighing scales, tarpaulins and other necessary tools are available and up to standards.
Qualifications
Asili is a growth-stage business in Uganda. We face challenges, changes, and opportunities, and we expect a member of our team to be capable of responding to this environment with aplomb. To do so it is expected that he or she possesses the following experience, qualifications and traits:
• A diploma in Agriculture sciences is the minimum requirement; Crop science and Agriculture extension are of particular interest.
• At least two years experience in crop (grain) production related field
• Experience working with farmer groups
• Ability to develop and maintain a positive dialogue with key stakeholders, including local communities.
• Strong oral and written presentation skills, teamwork, self-driven, creativity and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills. Ability to speak more than one local language is an added advantage.
• Ability to travel to and from the site located in Kigumba, as well as other sites as necessary. Should be comfortable working with rural communities.
• Good IT skills and excellent in using Microsoft Excel
• Good analytical skills