General Information

ADRA Indonesia is seeking an experience candidate for Livestock Technician who led the implementation of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) of 3 years Livelihood and Food Security Enhancement (LEAF) project as summarize below.

Background

Yayasan ADRA Indonesia is humanitarian organization and belongs to the worldwide ADRA network, comprised of more than 120 supporting and implementing country offices. The mission of the agency is to serve humanity so all may live as God intended. ADRA Indonesia aims to build a positive working environment through Justice, Compassion and Love as its main values. ADRA Indonesia has been working in Indonesia since 1981 and registered as a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in 1991. ADRA’s five core sectors include livelihood, mother and child health, WASH and has more than 20 years of experience on disaster response across Indonesia.  

The LEAF project intends to build on the foundation laid and progress made during REAF project (Recovery for Earthquake-Affected Farmers) implemented in 2019-2021. The previous REAF project helped 535 earthquake affected families to recover from the disaster impacts, they able to improve their food security through improved crop and livestock production and engagement in off-farm business opportunities. The LEAF project will provide further assistance to make a sustainable impact on food security, as COVID-19 pandemic and recurrent floods during the REAF project period constrained the participants’ ability to recover fully and sustain the progress made during the project period. 

Therefore, agriculture or livestock-based livelihoods are the viable options for them. REAF project has already laid a ground and future project can capitalize on those experiences/learnings to enhance skills and knowledge of people. Corn has emerged as a major crop after the decline of rice. However, people are not getting much income from vegetable although it may have contributed greatly to meet nutritional needs. Similarly, cocoa rehabilitation work has started to pay back.  If the approach of farmer field school that was started in REAF project is strengthened by further enhancing the capacity of lead farmers/facilitator (not only in technical skills but also to facilitate learning sessions with farmers), project can make a significant difference.

• Animal diseases and problem with feed/fodder were the major issues in livestock and people are not able to make much from livestock although more than 50% HHs are engaged in livestock rearing. Animal Health Workers developed in REAF project had limited skills to provide management advices and basic veterinary services. There is an opportunity to enhance their capacity by partnering with Department of Livestock. This could be complemented with the promotion of nutritious fodder/forage and local food preparation techniques in FFS. In order to reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers, promote sustainable agriculture and increase local food availability, the integration of livestock will be one of the important components in this project. Some farmer in Jonooge and Bangga have demonstrated that livestock not only provide food and income but also able to support agriculture by using livestock manure as organic fertilizer.

AHWs developed during the REAF project will be further screened based on their capacity and provided additional training to enhance their skills to work as local resource persons in animal management. The 6 days training package will be based on Heifer AHW training module. It will be discussed, revised if needed and endorsed by Department of Livestock and the district government. 20 (5 from each village) participants will be selected/re-selected in participatory approach through community engagement for this training.  We expect that about 80% of these trained AHWs will be active to provide services. 

 6-days training will cover following topics:

1. Nutritious fodder and forage for animal and ways to promote those species locally.
2. Livestock cage/shed management
3. Breed management including inbreeding control, handling the new born animals, handling abnormal births
4. Identifying disease using the vital signs and how to use the tools
5. Types of animal diseases commonly occur, common symptoms. Maior diseased, their prevention & treatment
6. Internal and external parasites of animals and treatment methods
7. Types of drugs for animal and how they work for sick animals, types of traditional plants for treatment and practice to making the traditional medicine.
8. Proper recording system for herd management .
9. AHW roles, principles and discussion the plan for sustainability of AHW services in the community
10. Government policies which is relevant and will support the sustainability of AHW.

Similar to the FFS sessions in crops, AHWs will conduct FFS in livestock. About 20-25 persons will come together to learn on livestock management practices, adopting the principle of FFS. The project team will design and arrange the simple modules for AHWs, prepare the tools and equipment for the trainings, and provide assistance to AHWs to lead participatory discussions during training. Basic management of livestock management will be focused on goat and pig, and about 6 monthly FFS learning sessions will be organized on following topics.

1. Discussion on existing livestock practices, constraints, plan and learning priorities
2. Shed management. The AHWs will facilitate the participants to learn from existing shed management in their village, including the demonstration shed available from previous REAF project. Sharing experience, good practices and challenges from the farmers will enrich the training process and to find the cost effective, environmentally friendly and gender sensitive.
3. Rearing practices: The training will help to achieve the objective by providing them more knowledge and practices on, such as morphology of goat/pig, feeding habit, parturition, maturity, kids rearing, maintaining environment etc. The training will be provided as per particular schedule depending upon the season.
4. Breed management: The training will provide knowledge on, such as selection of female and male goat/pigs, breeding season, materials and technologies used, and lactation. A breeding buck for each group will also be supported for which the community will bear the cost of insurance, feed, shed and maintenance. Farmers will also be encouraged to share a part of the cost to acquire a breeding buck so that they develop ownership. Farmer groups will be facilitated to create rules and regulations to manage the breeding buck, including assigning a farmer to raise it, service charge, a benefit sharing mechanism, and a system of replacing buck to check inbreeding.
5. Management of internal and external parasites in animals: Farmers will learn about the internal and external parasites and apply deworming and drenching on some animals and compare with control animal to experience the difference.
6. Animal disease management: Farmers will learn about the common symptoms of diseases and prevention measures

At the end of FFS cycles, farmers will reflect the FFS learning and develop future plan. A total of 40 FFS learning cycles is planned in livestock, 8 in Yr 1, 16 in Yr 2 and 16 in Yr 3. The plan is to train all the 450 HHs engaged in livestock at least once during the project period.

Functions of role

The function of Livestock Technician is to increase adoption of good livestock management, enable farmers to make more from livestock. Train lead farmers to Animal Health Workers and provide good advisory and basic veterinary services to the communities. The Livestock Technician also responsible to promote fodder/forage in and help in rehabilitation of degraded land. S/he will work closely with AHWs to plan and organize L-FFS seasons for general farmer.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Coordinate with relevant government departments, university to provide relevant support in the effort to increase livestock population and livestock management in the targeted community.
• Assess the potential and select lead farmer, develop relevance training modules/materials/other IEC materials and provide technical training to Animal Health Workers (AHW), including to equip the AHWs with knowledge on adult learning and facilitation skills.
• Support AHWs to design and arrange the simple modules, prepare the tools and equipment and provide assistance to AHWs in delivering FFS on livestock for general farmers.
• Facilitating meetings and events for AHWs to capture lesson learned and the way forward to increase capacity of farmers in livestock management and integrated to sustainable agriculture.
• Providing assistance to AHWs in marketing their services to the broader community, strengthening their organization and access government support.
• Provide monthly report on the milestones covered and challenges encountered, including lessons learned

Qualifications and Competencies Required

• Minimum of bachelor degree in Livestock extension or agriculture extension or other relevant disciplines with at least 3 years’ experience in livestock or agriculture extension system
• Good experience in participatory techniques, FFS, coaching, networking, learning, alliance building, and team building.
• Experience in the FFS methodology training, knowledge of methodology and ability to transfer this knowledge to AHWs;
• Experience of trainings of trainers; participatory approach, interaction with participants, teach the experience about the FFs using examples, success and failure

Deadline to submit your application is with February 25, 2023.  Only short listed of Applicants will be invited for interview.

Please submit your Application by email to: recruitment@adraindonesia.org and mark your e-mail subject: “Livestock Technician” 

Livestock Technician