Facilitator and Trainer for The Organic Farmer Ambassadors (TOFAs) on basics of Agroecology and facilitation skills under the Farmer Communication Out

Biovision Africa Trust (BvAT) www.biovisionafricatrust.org is a not-for-profit organisation established in Kenya in 2009 by the Biovision Foundation in Switzerland. The Trust’s goal is to alleviate poverty, and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Kenya, and other African countries through supporting dissemination of information and knowledge on appropriate technologies and practices in sustainable agriculture to improve human, animal, plant, and environmental health. To achieve this, BvAT works with various partners including governments, international partners, public institutions, civil society and farmers.

Currently, BvAT supports three main programmes, the Biovision Farmer Communication Programme (FCP) and the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) Initiative and The Knowledge Centre for Organic Agriculture.

Biovision Farmer Communication Programme contributes to BvAT’s goal by offering current, accurate, and research-based agricultural information on sustainable agriculture to improve profitability, stewardship and quality of life for smallholder farmers. There are four major communication channels the programme uses: print, broadcast, electronic media and face to face extension.

The Farmer Communication Outreach Project is one of the projects under the Farmer Communication Programme, being implemented by Biovision Africa Trust. The objective of the project is to enhance economic, social and environmental livelihoods of smallholder farmers in East Africa through increased adoption of ecologically sustainable agriculture (ESA) practices and technologies. This is done through dissemination of information on ecological sustainable agriculture by offering extension and advisory services. The information is categorised in four thematic areas, namely Plant health, Animal health, Human health and Environmental health.

1. Rationale for the assignment

Efficient extension service delivery is key to ensuring farmers adopt the technologies and practices that we promote so that they can improve their productivity and incomes. The decline in public agricultural extension services across the country has led to the challenge of farmers not getting adequate support to carry out their farming activities productively. This has resulted in the development of new approaches to disseminate information to farmers that help make scarce extension staff and resources more effective. One such approach is the Farmer Trainer approach. Farmer trainers are volunteers who are selected on the basis of their interest and ability to disseminate farming information in their communities. The Outreach team has engaged 60 TOFAs whom we would like to equip with basic skills on agroecology and other relevant cross cutting issues to enable them carry out farmer trainings effectively.

1. The purpose of the assignment

To equip BvAT TOFAs with basic skills in agroecology/organic agriculture, participatory facilitation, climate change issues and financial literacy. The Consultant should implement a practical training methodology that:

• Delivers basic technical training on agroecology/organic agriculture concepts.
• Provides basic understanding of how to engage farmers effectively.
• Offers basic training in cross cutting issues – climate change, record keeping,

This work will involve:

• Preparation of training materials on the above-mentioned topics.
• Conduct five (5) 2- day trainings for the TOFAs and extension staff on diverse dates as will be discussed with Biovision Africa Trust. The training will be practical, giving participants the chance to apply the concepts they are being trained on.
• Methodology

The training will employ integrated methods and tools for training the TOFAs which will include, and not limited to, lecturing, use of illustrations and visual aids such as diagrams, photos, videos, and on-farm demonstrations. The trainer will use adult appropriate training approaches.

1. Expected Outputs
2. Inception report detailing the assignment workplans, logistics arrangement, training outline, list of resource manuals to be used and the expected assignment deliverables.
3. Draft training materials and tools to be reviewed and approved by BvAT.
4. TOFAs from each region fully trained having covered adequately the training outline.
5. Three (western, central, and eastern) training reports, one for each region where the training is conducted. Each report will have the following sections:
6. Introduction
   • Training objectives
   • Methodology and tools used for training
   • Topics covered
   • Learning points
   • Challenges
   • Action planning
   • Recommendations
   • Annex –
   • Action plan by the trained TOFAs (use BvAT’s template)
   • List of participants using BvAT’s template
   • Training evaluation results
   • List of materials and tools used
   • Training photos
7. Time required and timeframe

The whole assignment is expected to take approximately 20 working days between 27^th September 2021 and 27^th October 2021.

1. Qualifications and competencies required
2. Masters or Advanced Degree in Agriculture, development studies and/or social sciences.
3. At least 5 years’ hands-on experience training farmers and other actors in the sector of agriculture. in carrying out similar work.
4. Good knowledge in ecological organic agriculture agenda, opportunities and challenges is vital.
5. A good understanding of agricultural extension space in Kenya.
6. Strong communications skills (oral and written) in English.
7. Adept at adult learning methods and applications, participatory approaches, etc.
8. Demonstrated ability to produce and deliver high quality training workshops.