Postdoctoral Fellow
Postdoctoral Fellow, FAW- Research and Adaptation Team Leader (Ref: DDG-R4D/PDF/FAW-RATL/11/19)
Background: The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) invites applications for the internationally recruited position of Postdoctoral Fellow, FAW- Research and Adaptation Team Leader.
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a not-for-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity. IITA is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Please visit https://www.iita.org/ for more information on IITA.
Project
IITA, in collaboration with the Land O’ Lakes Venture 37 received funding from USAID to implement a project on Fall Armyworm (FAW) Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in smallholder farmers’ system in DRC for 4 years. The project aims at enabling female and male smallholder maize producers, in selected areas in DRC, to gain equal access to the necessary information, skills, and appropriate inputs to safely and cost-effectively manage Fall armyworm (FAW) and increase maize yields and income through good agricultural practices (GAP) and IPM. The project will improve FAW control without the use of toxic pesticides and increase resilience capacities in FAW-affected communities. It will achieve this through three components: (1) Sustainable and cost-effective GAP and IPM technologies developed, validated ad scaled for the local context; (2) Increased adoption of GAP & IPM practices by smallholder maize producers and other local agricultural system actors to control FAW and (3) Improved policies and systems to create an enabling environment for GAP IPM deployment. Crosscutting intermediate results expected are to increase women’s empowerment and improve FAW learning, coordination and adaptation in DRC. Implementation zones include South Katanga, Kasai Occidental, Kasai Oriental/Lomani, South Kivu and Tanganyika, where the project team will collaborate with other USAID funded partners (CRS, Food for the Hungry and Mercy Corps) and build on national research and extension institutes in order to revitalize agriculture research and extension in DRC.
Position Responsibilities
The postdoctoral fellow will undertake the following activities in all project target areas:
- Design and conduct validation trials on FAW management technologies in order to adapt GAP and IPM recommendations to local contexts and to smallholder conditions in DRC.
- Assess technologies’ performance and cost-effectiveness against FAW under various agro-ecologies and smallholder conditions, including local farmer practices, botanicals, biopesticides and low toxicity chemical insecticides.
- Identify FAW natural enemies in DRC maize farming systems in target areas and design conservative and augmentative approaches.
- Conduct FAW surveillance and early warning activities including scouting, monitoring, pheromones trapping and mobile phone application platforms like FAMEWS and FIA.
- Assess good agricultural practices including integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), crop rotation, intercropping, push-pull, farming calendar, host plant resistance, weed management etc. adapted to local and smallholder conditions.
- Compile technical components of trainings materials based on result specific to local context;
- Supervise research assistants and extension experts in FAW management.
- Work in strong partnership with the DRC national FAW task force.
- Engage in policy debates and processes to facilitate FAW management at national and regional levels.
- Document best practices of FAW and related issues undertaken by the Project.
- Compile technical reports and publish results in Thomson indexed peer reviewed journals.
- Collaborate closely with the Project Management Team and technical staff.
- Perform any other task assigned by the Country Representative.
Educational Qualifications
The candidate should have a PhD in Agricultural Entomology or related fields. PhD concluded within the last 3 years. Preference will be given to those with “Ingénieur Agronome” background (BSc &MSc in Agricultural Sciences) with major in crop production or crop protection in order to go beyond Entomology and IPM for the wider GAP.
Core Competencies
- Proven experience in IPM against invasive insect pests in African farming systems.
- Experience with good agricultural practices.
- Experience with FAW research and management.
- Experience working in smallholder farming systems in Africa.
- Experience in implementation, monitoring and reporting of research for development projects;
- Familiarity with national research and extension services in Africa.
- Experience in both research and extension.
- Proven track record of scientific publications in high quality Thomson indexed peer reviewed scientific journals.
- Proactive, innovative and independent problem solver and excellent team player.
- Supervision of junior research team (research assistants, MSc-students, co-supervise PhD researchers).
- Excellent communication skills, able to interact with a multi-cultural and an interdisciplinary team of scientists and development partners in an average person’s language.
- Ability to deal with high workload and capacity to work under challenging (field) conditions.
- Fluency in written and oral French and English.
- Candidate is expected to be able to start as early as January 2020.
Duty Station: Kinshasa, DR Congo
General information: The contract will be for an initial period of two years. IITA offers an internationally competitive remuneration package paid in US Dollars.
Applications: Applications must include covering letter which should address how the candidate’s background/experience relates to the specific duties of the position applied for, curriculum vitae, names and addresses of three professional referees (which must include either the Head of the applicant’s current or previous organization or applicant’s direct Supervisor/Superior at his/her present or former place of work). The application should be addressed to the Head, Human Resources Service. Please complete our online application form using this link: https://www.iita.org/careers
Closing Date: 3rd December 2019
IITA is an equal opportunity employer and particularly welcomes applications from women candidates.
Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
