At the Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA), we believe organic cotton is the catalyst for a truly sustainable textiles sector. Our platform unites the sector to unleash the potential of organic cotton, from field to fashion, for people and the planet. We envision a future where, every time a farmer switches to organic cotton, there is a ripple effect of positivity: farmers earn more and their land and soils are fertile for future generations, protecting our planet. We call this the Organic Cotton Effect.
About the Role
As the Agronomy Officer you will be a natural team player and report to the Programme Implementation Manager, India. You will oversee, monitor and implement the capacity-building and demo plot activities, carried out by OCA’s Implementing Partners. You will coordinate the Regenerative – Organic interventions which take place in training and demo plots. In addition, you will develop close working relationships with OCA’s Non-GMO Seed Partners on the ground with whom you will align on the Farm Programme seed needs in volume, quality and price.
Responsibilities
Stakeholder engagement
- Build and nurture trustworthy and long-term relationships with the agronomy and extension staff from OCA’s Implementing Partners.
- Unite the OCA Farm Groups in a joint community that will develop and share agricultural knowledge, learnings, and best practices, as well as trial agricultural innovations for continuous performance improvement at organic cotton farms.
- Develop and participate in OCA’s monitoring approach to record the the continuous improvement achieved in our Demo plots (both impact and soil carbon content).
- Provide input and operational direction in developing a portfolio of work streams for shared learning across Farm Groups based on local needs and priorities.
- Set up and co-deliver these work streams using joint online and offline activities agreed upon with the Farm Groups.
Capacity-building and training
- In consultation with the Programme Implementation team, continuously evolve OCA’s capacity-building strategy and deliverables based on annual learnings.
- Facilitate the delivery of training based on the Organic Cotton Training. The curriculum for the training of trainers with a clear cascading impact on farmers.
- Measure and monitor the impact of OCA’s capacity-building inputs on farmers and extension teams.
- Together with the team deliver and define a cadence of OCA Farm training/capacity-building workshops as per OCA’s Organic Cotton Training Curriculum. Proactively ensure that Farm Group’s needs are covered.
- Recruit, develop and engage well-suited trainers for regional training.
Oversee Farm Groups’ seed trials and farm demonstration plots
- Provide support to OCA’s Farm Groups for setting up, maintaining, evaluating, and reporting on seed evaluation trials, both on-farm and in demo plot settings.
- Provide support to OCA’s Farm Groups for setting up, maintaining, evaluating, and reporting on farm demo plots dedicated to specific work streams and/or knowledge dissemination to farmers and farming communities.
- Collect and manage the agronomic data resulting from field trials and demo plots. Measure and track agronomic progress at key locations.
Participatory knowledge sharing and reporting
- Facilitate cross-learning between partners and stakeholders.
- Deliver impact data to OCA’s Farm Impact Report and share learnings and progress from the work streams. Turn the annual agronomic findings into hands-on blueprints and best practices. Identify improvement areas and propose solutions and mitigation measures.
- Monitor the Farm Programme usage of agreed supplies of non-GMO seed and make effective use of testing and distribution methods to reduce the GMO content in OCA’s Farm Programme.
- Enrich OCA’s online training platform with actual agricultural performance results and findings from the ground up.
- Represent OCA in national and international forums.
Application process
Please note that this position would require you to be based in India
To apply for this position, please submit your application here
We appreciate all applications, but only those selected for an interview will be contacted
