Consultant Potato Seed Production Consultancy NEW

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa’s farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience. This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. To learn more, please see our Why Work Here blog post.

Objective of the Assignment

To provide world-class technical expertise and strategic guidance in certified potato seed production, with a focus on maximizing productivity, ensuring the highest quality standards, building sustainable team capacity, and embedding cost-efficient production systems. The consultant will directly support the department’s scale-up ambitions, enabling rapid adoption of global best practices adapted to tropical and sub-tropical environments, and ensuring resilience to climatic and disease-related challenges.

Scope of Work

The consultant will deliver high-impact strategic and technical interventions across two consecutive production seasons in 2026 (total of 12 weeks, 6 weeks per season). This will include:

• On-site technical diagnostics and operational optimization across all seed production sites and generations.
• Strategic seasonal planning for land preparation, planting, crop management, harvest, and post-harvest handling.
• Cost-efficiency advisory, identifying opportunities to reduce inputs, streamline operations, and improve return on investment.
• Advanced quality assurance guidance, ensuring compliance with certification standards and alignment with international benchmarks.
• In-field, hands-on coaching and mentoring to upskill the production team in cutting-edge agronomic techniques.
• Rapid-response protocols for managing disease outbreaks, climatic stress, and other production risks.
• Documentation of innovations, lessons learned, and best practices for replication and scale-up.

Key Deliverables

Deliverable

Tangible Outcomes

1. Pre-Season Diagnostic & Strategic Technical Plan (per season)

• Comprehensive technical assessment of all production sites, identifying readiness, disease risk, and cost-efficiency gaps.

• Clear, actionable strategic plan linking technical interventions to cost and productivity outcomes.

• Prioritized investment roadmap ensuring resource optimization before season launch.

• Sets the foundation for achieving yield, quality, and cost targets across all sites.

2. Weekly Technical Advisory Briefs (on-site presence)

• Continuous expert oversight ensures adherence to global best practices in potato seed production.

• Rapid detection and mitigation of field challenges (disease outbreaks, agronomic errors, or cost overruns).

• Real-time advisory briefs for leadership decision-making, enhancing responsiveness and accountability.

• Improved operational discipline and consistency across production zones.

3. Specialized Training Sessions & Technical Manuals for Staff and Field Teams

• Hands-on, in-field capacity building for staff and partners, directly improving technical competencies and independence.

• Delivery of at least three high-impact training modules per season on disease management, seed quality control, and post-harvest handling.

• Development of standardized technical manuals and SOPs tailored to local conditions.

• Strengthened institutional knowledge base for sustained operational excellence.

4. Knowledge Transfer & Long-Term Capacity Strengthening

• Progressive handover of technical processes and analytical tools to internal staff.

• Establishment of a core “Potato Seed Expert Team” equipped to sustain high standards beyond the consultant’s engagement.

• Structured mentorship plan and performance tracking for local leads.

• Institutional knowledge captured and embedded into training materials, ensuring long-term self-reliance and continuity.

4. End-of-Season Performance & Improvement Report

• Evidence-based evaluation of productivity, cost, and quality performance vs. targets.

• Root-cause analysis and prioritized recommendations for operational improvement.

• Financial modeling of cost-reduction opportunities and efficiency gains.

• Clear decision framework and roadmap guiding next-season implementation and investment focus.

Reporting & Collaboration

The consultant will report directly to the Senior Lead, Potato Seed Production. Close collaboration is expected with the Field ProductionSpecialist, Outgrower Partnerships Specialist, Quality Control Specialist and the Data Coordinator to ensure alignment with operational planning, quality control, and performance monitoring.

Desired Qualifications

• Recognized international expert in potato seed production with significant experience in tropical/sub-tropical systems.
• Minimum 10–15 years of proven leadership in large-scale certified seed production, including in high-performance commercial and R&D environments.
• Demonstrated success in introducing and institutionalizing cost-efficient, high-yield production models.
• Extensive track record in training, mentoring, and capacity building for diverse field teams.
• Strong understanding of disease management, climate resilience, and varietal optimization.

Rationale for Consultant Engagement

The scaling of certified potato seed production from 100T to 2,000T annually requires unmatched technical precision, operational discipline, and adoption of best-in-class practices. The complexity of tropical potato seed systems, coupled with the risks of rapid scale-up, demands the involvement of a seasoned international specialist whose expertise can accelerate performance gains, safeguard quality, and embed sustainable cost-control measures. This targeted seasonal consultancy model ensures maximum technical impact at critical production windows while optimizing budget resources, leaving a lasting institutional capacity for excellence.

Job Location

Rwanda

Eligibility

One Acre Fund can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) our countries of operation are preferred.

Application Deadline

25 January 2026.Please note that we hire on a rolling basis which means that applications are reviewed and processed on a continuous basis until a hire is made.

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here ([email protected]), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

Tagged as: One Acre Fund, Rwanda