FAO Jobs: Agriculture Monitoring And Geospatial Specialist

Deadline : 20/Feb/2019, 11:59:00 PM
Organizational Unit: FNIRA
Job Type: Non-staff opportunities
Type of Requisition: PSA (Personal Services Agreement)
Grade Level: N/A
Primary Location: Iran, Islamic Republic of-Teheran
Duration: 9 Months
Post Number: N/A

Organizational Setting 

In the face of environmental complexity, FAO will provide assistance to the government of Islamic Republic of Iran, in setting up an improved agriculture monitoring system based on integral use of advanced geospatial technology to support the development of the techniques, policy and investment conditions to achieve sustainable agricultural development under climate change. Improved Agricultural monitoring is required to provide more timely, accurate and comprehensive in coverage than current systems and based on improved agricultural statistics. In addition, the improved agriculture monitoring system will support the development of an Agricultural Market System to enhance food market transparency and encourage coordination of policy action in response to country market uncertainty.The primarily objective of the project is the establishment of a prototype demonstrator operational agriculture monitoring system, established in a limited number of priority provinces (3); that improves quality of agriculture information and reporting based on geospatial technology with the expected impact of adoption of the improved strategies for increasing and diversifying production potentials by the Government. It will also focus on the identification of state of the art methods and strategy for acreage and yield estimation based on the assessment of the existing monitoring methodology and optimized through the use of remote sensing. It will identify sustainable methods for field data collection methodologies and approaches to produce improved, harmonized and consolidated statistics, utilizing statistically sound, harmonized methodology that leverages data collected by provincial agriculture offices. In addition, the project will benefit from the availability of multi-temporal satellite images for testing and monitoring of a range of crops for the selected provinces.Estimation through sampling in the field will be carried out to identify sites for crop cutting and crop area and yield estimation. The employment of multi-temporal high resolution satellite images will enable MOJA to collect near-real time crop field information and use it operationally for the monitoring. The post is located in FAO Representation Office in Tehran, The Islamic Republic of Iran.

Reporting Lines 

Under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative and the technical supervision of Lead Technical Officer (LTO) and National Project Officer, the incumbent will perform the tasks described below.

Technical Focus

This assignment require a certain number of working hours per week, including working minimum two-full days per week from the project Office  in Tehran and the reminder hours are worked remotely. The assignment also include periodic field visits to project pilot sites (for 2 to 3 days) each as required by the project under these terms of references.The consultant will report on technical matters to the LTO, and administratively to the project’s NPD/NPC and FAO Iran.The Consultant should submit monthly activity report to the project LTO for clearance no later than the 25th day of the month. The LTO will review and clear the report within 5 working day following submission. If the report is cleared by the project LTO, it is forwarded to the BH clearing the way for the payment for the days worked during the month.

Tasks and responsibilities 

• Provide the necessary technical support for the smooth and high-quality implementation of the project and facilitating the communication in relation to the different activities of the project;
• Ensure all necessary support input from Government are provided and its outfits to enable the project to implement all of the proposed component activities;
• Act as the responsible focal point in the carrying assignment from FAO in the Government;
• Support the development of the technical report on agriculture monitoring current approaches for crop area and yield estimation, gaps and limitations describing the main sustainable methods and tools for improving the quality of countries’ agricultural statistics based on the integral use of geospatial information using an area frame sampling technique;
• Work in close collaboration with technical team giving information and assistance on the implementation of technical activities related to agriculture monitoring and crop area and yield estimation;
• Support the development of an improved field-data collection methodology/systems integrated with geospatial technologies;
• Prepare training and workshops materials;
• Follow up findings and recommendations;
• Prepare a final report;
• Perform any other tasks as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements 

• Advanced university degree in Agriculture, Agriculture Statistics, Remote Sensing or the equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience;
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in applications agriculture monitoring, statistics and  Remote Sensing / GIS and/or other agriculture studies;
• Proven communications skills and fluent in English language;
• National of Iran

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Extent and relevance of experience in management of agriculture monitoring and geospatial based projects and programmes;
• Extent and relevance of experience in spatial data handling, analysis and GIS, for agriculture monitoring and statistics;
• Proven communications skills and fluent in English language.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
• FAO does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing).
• Incomplete applications will not be considered. If you need help, or have queries, please contact: [email protected]
• Applications received after the closing date will not be accepted.
• Only language proficiency certificates from UN accredited external providers and/or FAO language official examinations (LPE, ILE, LRT) will be accepted as proof of the level of knowledge of languages indicated in the online applications.
• For other issues, visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/
• For further information on categories, contract duration and honoraria, please refer to the Conditions page.

HOW TO APPLY
To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. Only applications received through the recruitment portal will be considered.
Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile.
Vacancies will be removed from the recruitment portal at 23:59 Central European Time (CET) on the deadline for applications date. We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.
If you need help, or have queries, please contact: [email protected]