Job Description
Agronomist
Job ID: R-41171
Category: Supply
Chain
Location: Mufindi,
Iringa
Purpose of the Role
To coordinate Agronomic activities in Unilever Tea Tanzania
– undertake trialing, support roll out and implementation of good agricultural
practices and sustainable and regenerative agriculture initiatives
Key Responsibilities
Technical
- Undertake
fertilizer calibration and harvesting experiments. Draft design and
protocols, undertake trial sites identification and lay out agreed
experiments to meet objectives.
- Coordinate
the monitoring of crop nutritional status in all production fields and
advise on remedial measures
- Evaluate
new innovations in agricultural operations – planting, harvesting and
general husbandry in line with company productivity improvements for the
estates and the outgrowers
- Supervise
collection, collation, and analysis of data from the field experiments
- Undertake
preparation /drafting of agronomy trial reports
- Responsible
for training of field research assistants and data clerks.
- Provide
expert knowledge in Agronomy to ETT.
- Seek
leadership agreement in adoption of novel cost-effective agricultural
technologies
- Support
the operations in the implementation of GAP at the divisional level
through engagement with divisional managers and field visit.
- Collaborate
with the company Tea breeders, the microbiologists, processing
Technologists, and company engineers to develop and innovate growing and
harvesting technologies.
Administrative
- Collate
and present data for the R&D annual budget preparation
- Plan
& supervise transport to experimental sites
- Provide
technical assistance to estate managers
- Supervise
data collection in line with the Unilever sustainable agriculture code of
practice/ SA indicators
- Coordinate
documentation relevant to agricultural/environmental certification schemes
subscribed to by Unilever Tea Kenya.
- Maintain
historical records and carry out biannual benchmarking with other
competitor plantations.
- Provide
data for updating of the GAP manual.
- Provide
training to the estate managers on topical agronomic issues
Relationships
- Jointly
provide agronomic/plantation management information to the Estate/divisional
managers, Outgrower managers, Finance managers, and procurement managers
for effective production and cost management.
- Engage
with national research institutions in development of new tea growing
technologies
- Support
provision of quality specifications to procurement team for effective
sourcing of farm inputs
- Evaluate
and distil value from any research/plantation consultants.
- Liaise
with legal for publication and protection of internally developed
agronomic technologies.
- Work
closely with R&D and field operations teams to understand challenges
of green leaf production, interdependencies and potential solutions.
Scope
Undertakes projects within Unilever Tea plantation Tanzania,
Mufindi and Njombe Outgrowers network.
Challenges
- Influencing
ability to gain commitment of the operations team
- Maintain
solid understanding of current agronomic knowledge and trends in
agricultural business dynamics
- Handling
varied and often conflicting requests from operations
Competencies
- Strong
analytical power, statistical acumen, Organizational awareness,
influencing ability, and working knowledge on business acumen.
- Good
team player and adept at building strong cross-cultural/ cross-functional
working relationships.
Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion
and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future,
every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and
communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions
and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every
individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you!
Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to
advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through
your recruitment journey.