Land O’Lakes Venture37

Background: 

Land O'Lakes Venture37 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening local agriculture, helping agribusinesses create jobs and linking farmers to markets. Since 1981, it has implemented over 315 integrated dairy, livestock, and crops development programs in nearly 80 countries — creating lasting impact by linking farmers, businesses, and the public and private sector in local and global contexts. Land O’Lakes Venture37’s long-standing affiliation with Land O’Lakes, Inc. sets it apart. Land O’Lakes, Inc. is one of America’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives. It supports Land O’Lakes Venture37 project implementation with nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights and technologies. This gives Land O’Lakes Venture37 development projects a unique global view of agriculture, food, and the power of well-functioning market systems. Land O’Lakes, Inc. supports these efforts as part of its enterprise purpose of Feeding Human Progress at home and around the world.

Project Description:

The Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AIDI) is a CGIAR initiative consisting of a series of rapid impact interventions aiming to ensure that smallholder farmers in key food production areas of sub-Saharan Africa have the information and innovation they need to offset the increase of food, fuel and fertilizer prices brought on by the war in Ukraine. The initiative aims to support resource-poor smallholder farmers to increase crop production and productivity through access to know-how, fertilizers, improved seeds, and financing mechanisms.

Land O’Lakes Venture37 has a sub-agreement with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to implement a rapid impact intervention focusing on the commercial and indigenous poultry value chains in Zambia. The Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative – Livestock (AIDI-L) is a 24-month project whose overall aim is to contribute to improved food and nutrition security and rural incomes in Zambia. Specifically, the project’s purpose is to improve productivity and availability of poultry meat and eggs at household and local market levels through widespread adoption of sustainable livestock innovation. AIDI-L aims to reach 15,000 smallholder households in Zambia through private sector-led, women-and youth- focused innovations in poultry, and 375,000 through poultry vaccination and media campaigns.

Position Summary: 

The Poultry Business Services Manager leads AIDI-L’s enterprise development engagement with local poultry farming communities, women, and youth-led micro/small scale start-ups and scale-ups, poultry related service and input businesses, and cost-shared investment partnerships with hatcheries. The Poultry Business Services Manager will work closely with field teams to link with local enterprises in the poultry sector, as well as partners providing advisory services to the project.

This post is based in Lusaka with travel as required.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide technical oversight to public-private partnership engagements including development of incubation clusters, and facilitation of cost-share investments and agreements with poultry incubation clusters, brooders, and hatchery businesses. 
• Build brooder's business services and inputs delivery capacity and link these to field teams engaging poultry producers to access improved backyard village chickens and commercial chickens in defined geographical areas. 
• Lead the development, publishing, evaluation, and award of cost-share investments and oversee the poultry business cost-shared investment portfolio. 
• Develop and train on Business Enterprise Capacity Building for cost-share recipients. 
• Facilitate links between women and youth brooders and vendors to business development incubation services with the Centre for African Leaders in Agriculture (CALA).
• Engage, train and mentor interested Poultry Development Groups (PDGs) and poultry producers to develop village savings and loan groups and facilitate access to starter kits. 
• Link vetted interested VSLAs to cost-share investment opportunities to scale-up investments. 
• Coordinate partnership relationships with key planned project enterprise development stakeholders in the geographical area including private sector and farmer-based organizations. 
• Ensure all data generated is entered into IMPACTS accurately and in a timely manner. 
• Ensure all required work plans, and reports are of a high quality and submitted on time. 
• Monitor enterprise development activities, including providing follow-on mentorship and technical support to investments, and ensure project intended outputs and outcomes are being achieved. 
• Support in identifying and reporting best practices and facilitating peer-to-peer learning visits. 
• Ensure compliance with all organizational, donor and national rules and regulations. 
• Work cross functionally with project, MEL, and finance and admin teams to provide relevant training and onboarding. 

Reporting & Supervision:

This position reports to the Project Advisor and has no direct reports.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science/Art degrees (BSc/BA) in Economics / Agriculture Economics, marketing, business, rural development or equivalent
• A minimum of four (4) years of demonstrated relevant field experience in business/finance development for SME’s.
• Experience developing and managing financing products for the agricultural sector in Zambia.
• Experience managing financing portfolios, including donor funded enterprise development programs.
• Demonstrated experience training small-scale producers in business management/development and providing technical support services to agri-businesses.
• Ability to train/mentor/coach field staff and build technical capacity.
• Ability to communicate effectively, including accurate report writing, familiarity with work plan development and ability to read and write budgets
• Able to work with limited supervision and deliver on time.
• Team player with excellent interpersonal and written and oral presentation skills. Fluency in oral and written English
• Proficiency in Microsoft packages including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Preferred Skills and Qualifications:

• A MSc in Economics / Agriculture Economics, marketing, business, rural development or equivalent, or other relevant fields, with additional experience an advantage.
• Experience working in the banking and finance sector in Zambia.
• Strong command of local language spoken in area of operation.
• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls will be accepted.

Land O’Lakes Venture37 never requests money or payment from candidates for any position type. Please report any such requests to Land O’Lakes Venture37.

Land O’Lakes Venture37 is an equal opportunity employer and an organization striving to help global communities thrive through agriculture. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or veteran status, among other factors. Our culture values a diversity of voices. So, bring us your unique experiences, your workstyle, and your dreams — they’ll only make us stronger.