Recruitment of Consultants for the Farmer Agro Input Packages (AIPs)

Type of contract: Consultancy

Duration: 2 months

Start date: August 1, 2022

Programs: EnGRAIS

Donor(s): USAID

Location: West Africa

Number of Positions:1

Background                                                                                                                 

Poor agricultural productivity in West African countries and Chad is partly related to the insufficient use of suitable agricultural inputs, including improved seed varieties and appropriate fertilizer recommendations. Currently, the rate of coverage of quality certified seed requirements in sub-Sahara Africa is still around 25 percent, while the average amount of fertilizer nutrients used in the ECOWAS zone in 2017 was about 17 kg/ha, which is far below the 50 kg/ha set to be achieved by 2015 as advocated by the Heads of State at the Abuja Summit in 2006.

The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) are two organizations working to increase agricultural productivity in Africa. Both organizations are implementing an approach that aims to encourage producers to make more profit using Agricultural Input Packages (AIPs), i.e., a combination of improved seed varieties, appropriate fertilizer recommendations, and Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) specific to Agro-Ecological zones (AEZs).

IFDC and CORAF are implementing the "Enhancing Growth through Regional Agricultural Input Systems (EnGRAIS)" and the "Partnership for Agricultural Research, Education and Development (PAIRED)" projects, respectively.  EnGRAIS and PAIRED are two five-year projects (2018-2023 and 2017-2022, respectively) funded by the United States Agency for International Development, West Africa Regional Mission (USAID/WA). The common objective of these two projects is to develop and make available to West African producers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector, AIPs and a decision-making tool, the Fertilizer and Seed Recommendation Map for West Africa (FeSeRWAM) interactive platform (https://feserwam.org/fr).

This online platform was deployed and launched in August 2020 following a process which was participatory and inclusive and was started in October 2018. IFDC and CORAF project teams are making every effort to ensure the sustainability of this platform that will benefit farmers and other end-users in the region. The two projects in cooperation with key partners developed and validated an Integrated Communications and Marketing Strategy to accelerate the dissemination of the FeSeRWAM/AIPs platform to facilitate a rapid adoption by the end-users who are mainly farmers. One of the essential components of this strategy is the strengthening of the capacity of the actors through cascade trainings. It is within this framework that IFDC and CORAF have conducted series of cascade trainings that have already been completed at the regional level and currently on-going at the national level and will cascade to the lowest level i.e., farmer level. It is only in this way, that the end users will access AIPs to increase their production as well as improve agricultural productivity. Therefore EnGRAIS/PAIRED seeks to engage the services of a reputable and well-experienced institution (the "Consultant") to conduct an in-depth regional survey, analysis, and reporting of the farmer adoption of agro-input packages in Francophone West Africa including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo.

Reports to:  MEL Specialist

General Description:

EnGRAIS/PAIRED seeks to engage the services of a reputable and well-experienced institution/individual (the "Consultant") to conduct an in-depth regional survey, analysis, and reporting of the farmer adoption of agro-input packages in Francophone West Africa including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo. Specifically, how the end-user i.e., the farmer has perceived the AIPs and has adopted at least one of the recommended packages i.e., improved seed, fertilizer, and Good Agricultural Packages (GAPS). (See attached a questionnaire developed for this purpose) Overall, the consultant will be responsible for conducting the survey while providing qualitative and quantitative data and results on how the EnGRAIS/PAIRED has been largely successful in accomplishing this mandate. Importantly, the consultant will provide a final report including number of farmers (male and female & age category i.e., 15-29 years and above 30 years) adopting the AIPs and making recommendations that will guide USAID and other organizations in formulating future projects.

Duties and Responsibilities; Specific objectives of the study

An online platform (https://feserwam.org/fr) was developed by IFDC and CORAF and launched in August 2020 following a process that began since October 2018. The two organizations have made every effort to ensure the sustainability of this platform [Agro-Input Packages (AIP) can be downloaded from this platform] to benefit farmers and other end-users in the West Africa sub-region. In cooperation with key partners the Integrated Communications and Marketing Strategy was also developed and validated to accelerate the dissemination of the AIPs that will facilitate a rapid adoption by end-users/farmers.

The objective of this exercise is to conduct a survey in six francophone countries to find out the number of farmers that will adopt at least one recommended AIP during the current farming season to increase production and for that matter improve upon productivity. Research shows that with the use of at least one of the recommended input packages there will be improvement in yields of crops and therefore farmers are advised and encouraged to use these input packages.

The primary actors of the survey will include the regional institution that will identify six national trainers, 10 data collection agents per country and 500 selected farmers per country divided into three Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) including Semi-Arid, sub-humid and Humid zones of West Africa.

Scope of work:

The scope of work to be undertaken by the Consultant in conducting the survey including but not limited to the underlisted.:

1. Finalization and digitalization of questionnaire
2. Hiring of 6 national supervisors
3. Training of national supervisors on preparatory work
4. Selection of 10 enumerators per country with the assistance of national supervisors
5. Training of enumerators by regional consultant on data collection activities using tablet
6. Pre-testing of questionnaire
7. Random selection of 500 farmers {M&F} from 3 Agroecological zones viz; semi-arid, sub-humid and humid to be interviewed
8. Data collection, analysis, and reporting

Expected results and deliverables and Timeline

The key output of this survey is:

a detailed report indicating number of farmers adopting AIPs per AEZ,

area and yield before and after use of the AIPs,

challenges and lessons learned,

key recommendations for sustained adoption of AIPs.

It is envisaged that this assignment will be undertaken within a period of eight weeks from August to September 2022.

Required Experience

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Be a reputable and well-experienced institution/individual (the "Consultant") with a 10 years’ experience in the industry.
• Experienced in conducting in-depth regional surveys, analysis, and reporting of the farmer adoption of agro-input packages in Francophone West Africa countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo.
• Experienced in collecting end-user (farmer) adoption of fertilizer recommendations
• Experienced in the administration of agricultural field questionnaires
• Experienced in conducting surveys while providing qualitative and quantitative data and results on how a project has been largely successful in accomplishing its mandate.
• Report writing
• Knowledge on USAID procedures.