Junior Agronomist - Karnataka

Company Introduction:

Varaha is a global, leading, climate tech venture focused on carbon removal solutions such as - regenerative agriculture, afforestation, biochar, and enhanced rock weathering - that support smallholder land stewards at scale. In just the third year of operation, we are removing and avoiding more than 1 million tons of CO2 and distributing the majority of the revenues to more than 100,000 smallholder land stewards in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Backed by leading global investors, our founding and management team comes with a stellar track record of successfully scaling projects and products to millions of smallholder land stewards at leading Agriculture and tech businesses.

Position : Agronomist

Location: Karnataka (Any Location)

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Plantation Planning & Site Assessment: Analyze local climatic conditions, soil conditions, nutrient levels, and water availability at farmers field and nursery site before plantation starts. Knowledge of native as well as exotic tree species.
• Nursery Level Management: Supervise nursery operations (weeding, fertigation, shifting etc.) and monitoring sapling health by using the quality parameters (sapling quality assurance and quality control) before dispatching to the plantation site.
• Planting & Maintenance Operations: Oversee field preparation, planting techniques (plantation models / design), and long-term maintenance, including irrigation scheduling, fertilization, and weed control, and other operations at nursery as well as farm level.
• Integrated Pest & Disease Management: Guidance to the farmers about tree plantation in terms of Inter cropping, pest, disease, growth parameters, fertilizer and irrigation schedule for better outcome.
• Data Collection & Reporting: Maintain detailed records of plantation progress, including survival rates, growth metrics/measurements and soil conditions and assessments, documentation activities, MRV, soil sample collections and other project related work.
• Team Training: Train implementation partner field staff and local nursery workers on best practices for planting, nurturing, protecting trees and other activities related to projects. Part of a various management level meetings (including LSC) to develop the agroforestry-based market strategies for growth in the agriculture sector to enhance the livelihood of farmers.
• Actively engaged in initiating, planning, conducting, guiding and supervising multidisciplinary research in the field of agroforestry and nursery level.
• Supervision and training to implementation partner about the new APPs (VANN, ODK) development as well as changes and to farmers for various agronomic operations in project plantation, integrated nutrient management, integrated pest and disease management

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• Education: Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy, Forestry, Horticulture, Soil Science, or a related field. A Master’s degree is preferred.
• Experience: 2-5 years of experience in tree plantation management, forestry, agriculture or large-scale afforestation projects having a strong background of agronomy.
• Technical Skills: Strong knowledge of soil science, plant pathology, and tree physiology. Experience with GIS, GPS, KML or remote sensing for site mapping, is a plus.
• Physical Stamina: Ability to work in the field, often in remote or harsh environments, standing, walking, and operating in all weather conditions.
• Language: Should be fluent in Kannada and either English or Hindi
• Travelling: It is a travelling role with 80-90% travel involved.