The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Based in New York City, with offices throughout the United States and worldwide, the Rainforest Alliance works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travelers.
This consultancy will support cocoa activities under a Cameroon Community Forestry project by providing training on improving productivity and farmer business skills to cocoa farmers in community forests and cocoa landscapes in the Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom corridor (South region). Consultant will also provide support to the Central Africa Manager in following up and implementing overall project activities.
The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Based in New York City, with offices throughout the United States and worldwide, the Rainforest Alliance works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travelers.
Position summary:
This consultancy will support cocoa activities under a Cameroon Community Forestry project by providing training on improving productivity and farmer business skills to cocoa farmers in community forests and cocoa landscapes in the Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom corridor (South region). Consultant will also provide support to the Central Africa Manager in following up and implementing overall project activities.
Responsibilities:
- Collect and analyze data on farms, current practices, and potential to increase yields;
- Support the design of the training system and training tools per the SAN Standard, which is a requirement for Rainforest Alliance certification;
- Facilitate the establishment of Farmer Field Schools, i.e. a participatory learning model bringing together a group of farmers under the facilitation of the Cocoa Associate to share production challenges and opportunities, test and learn best management practices;
- Conduct trainings as part of the Farmer Field Schools focused on improving cocoa productivity, quality and environmental impact reduction;
- Provide individual coaching to farms to conduct a diagnosis, prepare an improvement plan, and then follow up on the implementation of best practices, and keep track of results;
- Disseminate information to cocoa value chain actors about Rainforest Alliance Certification for agricultural products;
- Report on project activities as per pre-defined deliverables;
- Provide support to the Central Africa Manager on project monitoring and implementation of the project’s activities, as needed, including activities related to timber and non-timber forest products, and the roll out of community forestry in target locations;
- Support communication efforts about the project, by contributing with success stories, pictures, blogs, etc