Conservation Agriculture (Fixed-term)

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.
Our Rwanda program, founded in 2007 is our largest and operates under the local brand Tubura. We have more than 3,000 staff across all four provinces of Rwanda, as well as in Kigali. Together, we served more than 2.8 million farmers in 2024. We work closely with the government to support national efforts to improve food security. Additionally, we help channel funding and resources to promising agri-SMEs, supporting farmers by providing a market for high-impact crops such as coffee, avocado, and chilli.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled and passionate Senior Agronomist with in-depth expertise and at least 6 years of experience in Conservation Agriculture and deploying farmer training in these practices in the field.

Responsibilities

Conservation Agriculture Strategy & Extension Development

• Develop and continuously improve scalable conservation agriculture advisory models in collaboration with farmer advisory and field teams.

• Design practical extension materials, training manuals, visual guides, and digital tools tailored to diverse farmer needs and contexts.

• Translate technical concepts including cover cropping, minimum tillage, agroforestry, and integrated pest management into practical field-based curricula.

• Adapt advisory approaches and materials based on climate, soil, socioeconomic conditions, farmer feedback, and field learning.

Farmer Training, Field Deployment & Adoption

• Provide hands-on technical guidance to field teams delivering farmer trainings, workshops, Farmer Field Schools, and demonstration plots.

• Build the capacity of field staff and local extension agents to effectively promote and support conservation agriculture adoption.

• Provide timely agronomic troubleshooting to farmers and field teams addressing crop, soil, pest, and climate-related challenges.

• Work with MEL and field teams to develop and implement systems that track adoption, farmer outcomes, and opportunities for scaling.

Agronomic Research, Practice Optimization & Impact

• Evaluate and refine conservation agriculture practices to improve soil health, water retention, biodiversity, productivity, and farmer profitability.

• Collaborate with R&D teams to design and oversee field assessments of soil health, crop performance, and environmental outcomes.

• Analyze field evidence and farmer feedback to identify high-impact practices and recommend improvements to conservation agriculture programming.

• Translate research findings and field learning into practical recommendations, extension content, and scalable implementation models.

Partnership & Cross-Functional Project Leadership

• Build and manage strategic relationships with public, private, NGO, academic, and other technical partners supporting conservation agriculture initiatives.

• Coordinate project plans, timelines, deliverables, reporting, and data sharing across internal teams and external consortium partners.

• Represent the conservation agriculture program in technical discussions and ensure strong alignment between farmer needs, organizational priorities, and partner objectives.