Agriculture Program Team Member

About the Role:

The Team Member Agriculture will support the design and implementation of interventions in agriculture, livestock, and aquaculture. The role will focus on:

• Enhancing productivity of existing crops,
• Diversifying into high-value crops,
• Strengthening farmer institutions (FPOs, SHGs, cooperatives),
• Building value addition and processing infrastructure, and
• Enabling market linkages with institutional buyers and private players.

The role demands strong execution skills, farmer engagement capabilities, documentation ability, and close coordination with government and private stakeholders. The Team Member will report to the Team Lead Agriculture.

Responsibilities:

Strategic Implementation

Support delivery of agriculture and allied projects under Amrit Prayas, aligned with sustainability and inclusivity goals.

Crop Diversification & Productivity

Identify opportunities for high value crops and diversification opportunities like banana, turmeric, vegetables, mushrooms, and aquaculture diversification.

Drive productivity enhancement in staple crops through better inputs, irrigation, and agronomic practices.

Farmer Mobilization & Institution Building

Work with FPOs, SHGs, and cooperatives to strengthen collective bargaining, input access, and aggregation.

Mobilize farmers for pilots, trainings, and exposure visits.

Value Chain Development

Facilitate primary/secondary processing (sorting, grading, chips, powders, feed mills, dairy chilling, poultry units).

Guide branding, certification (GI/organic), and packaging initiatives.

Market Linkages

Enable connections with buyers, traders, and digital platforms.

Develop cluster-based linkages for high-value crops and livestock products.

Sustainability & Climate-Smart Agriculture

Promote water efficiency (drip/sprinklers), soil health, crop rotation, organic inputs, renewable energy (solar irrigation, cold storage).

Identify opportunities for carbon projects and climate-smart interventions.

Monitoring & Reporting

Prepare detailed action plans with milestones and household-level targets.

Track implementation progress via dashboards, farmer logs, and periodic reporting.

Cross-vertical Coordination

Collaborate with Enterprise and Investment teams for integrated solutions (e.g., Linking processing infra to farmer supply).

Knowledge & Documentation

Draft project reports, feasibility assessments, DPRs, case studies, and best practice documents.

Capture learnings from pilots to support replication and scale-up.

Educational Qualifications:

Bachelors degree in Agriculture, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Rural Development, or related field (required).

Masters degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness Management, Development Studies, or related discipline (preferred).

Professional Experience:

Minimum 3-5 years of experience in agriculture/rural development, agribusiness, value chain projects, or allied fields.

Desirable Attributes:

• Experience in government projects, farmer advisory, FPO development, or agribusiness ecosystems.
• Ability to work closely with farmers and grassroots institutions while also engaging national buyers and startups.
• Strong documentation, communication, and training skills.
• Comfort in multi-stakeholder, fast-paced environments with tight delivery timelines.