Data Science Agronomist at The International Potato Center (CIP): (Deadline 31 March 2023)

The International Potato Center (CIP) is seeking to recruit an energetic and results-oriented Data Science Agronomist to support the co-creation of agronomic advisory services with demand and scaling partners in the context of the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative.

About the Initiative

The Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative aims to deliver agronomic gain for millions of smallholder farming households in prioritized farming systems, with emphasis on women and young farmers for measurable impact on food and nutrition security, income, water use, soil health and climate resilience.

The work in the EiA Initiative is organized around Use Cases that take place in contrasting contexts in the Global South. Use Cases respond to partner demands for agronomic solutions and focus on the development of Minimum Viable Products with a demand partner (public or private) that has an active extension network in a specific target area.

For the co-creation of agronomy solutions, EiA is building on recent advances in ‘Agronomy-at-scale’ approaches to develop insights into how spatial variability in biophysical and socio-economic conditions affects the performance of agronomic products. Key elements of ‘agronomy-at-scale’ include: a clear definition of the target area to influence, GIS-assisted sampling frames, multilocation field trials with effective experimental designs, spatially-explicit statistical analyses of biophysical and socio-economic information, crop modelling, machine learning and efficient data management systems.

About CIP

CIP, a member of the One CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. One CGIAR science is dedicated to transforming food, land and water systems in a climate crisis, and it is carried out by 13 CGIAR Centers/Alliances in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector.

CIP works with partners in over 20 countries to improve diets and incomes of poor people in Africa, Asia and Latin America through scientific research, innovation, and capacity strengthening.  Focusing on potato and sweetpotato as food systems entry point, CIP’s programs seek to strengthen broader agri-food systems to generate economic, social and nutritional benefits for farmers, enterprises and consumers emphasizing the priorities of women and youth in particular. CIP emphasizes the synergies between social and bio-physical sciences as a core strategy for making breakthroughs in our understanding of complex development challenges in food and agriculture and for our ability to overcome these. Within this pluralistic strategy, qualitative social science has a central, and increasing place for explaining human and institutional behavior and assessing benefits and risks for human development.

About the position

EiA is modernizing agronomy research, building on technological advances in the use of big data, geospatial analyses and crop modeling. The integration of these technological advances provides opportunities to develop increasingly well-performing decision support tools capable of providing site-specific agronomic advice to farmers and other actors at scale, often delivered through digital platforms. The Data Science Agronomist will support the co-creation of agronomic advisory services with demand and scaling partners in the context of EiA Use Cases.

Key Responsibilities:

• Implement agronomy-at-scale approaches to generate scalable insights in site-specific responses to agronomic innovations in close collaboration with EiA Use Case partners;
• Develop, maintain, and continuously update decision analytics for site-specific agronomic advisory in collaboration with EiA Use Case partners;
• Build capacity of national partners in digital data collection and management, analytics to generate decision-support tools, and other agronomy-at-scale approaches;
• Liaise with potentially new EiA partners in East and West Africa to assess demand for agronomic advisory services;
• Design EiA Use Cases to respond to demand for agronomic advisory services from new partners.

Requirements

Education and Experience

• PhD in Agronomy, Agricultural Sciences or related
• Excellent skills and minimum 3 years of experience in geospatial analysis, crop modeling and machine learning.
  Excellent skills in R programming.
• Advanced knowledge of design and statistical analysis of field experiments.
• Experience in working with local partners in the agricultural sector in East and/or West Africa.
• Good understanding of crop management in the context of smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Experience with the implementation of field experimental work is an advantage.

 Key competences

• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and deliver quality products

Languages

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English are required.

Benefits

• Exciting career growth opportunity in an international organization.
• Internationally competitive salary, paid in US dollars, and commensurate with experience.
• Comprehensive international insurance coverage.
• Attractive retirement plan.
• Three-year term contract with the possibility of renewal.

How to apply

Visit the following link: https://cipotato.org/open-vacancies/ and submit your cover letter and a full C.V. with your references.