Consultants Needed for Scion Garden Establishment, Management at Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA)

Posted by Future on Wed 12th Jan, 2022 - nigeriantenders.com

Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) invites qualified and interested consultant(s) to tender applications for the following works:

Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) is an international agricultural development organization that specializes in the design and implementation of sustainable, enterprise-based agricultural initiatives. We work with businesses, foundations, governments, and communities to build customized local and global partnerships that meet the world’s growing demand for food.

Applications are invited for:

Title: Consultant Solicitation - Technical Lead for Nurseries / Establish Scion Gardens and Facilitate access to high yield polyclonal planting materials in Nigeria

Preamble

PRO-Cashew is a USDA program implemented by CNFA in West Africa. The project aims to boost the competitiveness of West African producers by improving efficiency and quality in production and trade and by working to develop more coherent regional trade and investment policies.

PRO-Cashew seeks the services of a consultant to lead Scion Gardens Establishment and facilitate access to high-yield cashew polyclonal planting material for farmers in Nigeria. This activity would require the Consultant to work and coordinate with other stakeholders, namely Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), commercial and smallholder farmers, and the National Cashew Committee and other expert consultants in the cashew sector.

The Consultant will make frequent local trips to different producing ecologies of Nigeria, namely-Enugu, Kogi, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, and Benue, etc., to supervise the establishment of scion garden's establishment organize capacity building programs for the host of these gardens.

Overview of Scion Gardens and Facilitation of Improved Planting Material
The PRO-Cashew project is in the 3rd year of implementation. The project and its partners would prioritize facilitating access to high yielding material for cashew farmers in Nigeria for the remaining year left. The initial cloning activity will start by grafting the scions provided by the Consultant. The second phase of cloning will occur after validating the trees selected as mother trees. Nuts would be harvested from these trees to establish Gene Banks and scion gardens in targeted locations.

The project would also, through this activity,seek to establish and/or upgrade existing nurseries by addressing training and infrastructural gaps. Grafters will receive training in nursery management and best practices. By 2024, the nurseries will begin to access these scion gardens to harvest planting materials for grafting.Similarly, farmers can directly source seedlings from community nurseries.

The Consultant will propose innovative approaches and techniques to carry out this assignment.

Scope of Work

Establish cashew tree clone's nursery facilities in Nigeria
Develop training manuals for nursery management.
Provide cashew grafting training in Nigeria
Develop training manuals for cashew grafting
Establish cashew scion gardens in 7 locations within Nigeria
Develop training manuals on scion gardens establishment and maintenance
Provide expertise in scion gardens establishment and maintenance
Establish 350,000 cashew root stocks for grafting to high yielding cashew clones
Provide practical training on scion selection and harvesting, working closely with CRIN to harvest scion from selected mother trees
Develop training manuals scion selection and harvesting
Provide expertise in establishing of 2 cashew gen-banks in Nigeria
Provide professional tool kits for Nursery operation and Scion Garden management.

Qualification Requirements

University Degree, preferred in Agriculture, Horticulture, Technical related background or any relevant discipline;
Proven track record in the development of cashew nut cultivation research, production experience, business support strategies, and implementation.
Extensive hands-on experience in research and production of cashew nuts and tree crops in general, strategic planning and monitoring and evaluation processes.
Demonstrate experience and hands on in nursery, scion gardens establishment and operations management
Proven experience in cashew nurseries and scion gardens establishment and management
Demonstrated knowledge of strategic research and production management at the international level
Experience in designing and delivering capacity-building programs to research in tree crop and cashews nut production in particular.

Application Closing Date

5:00 pm (GMT), January 13, 2022.

Submission of Documents

All applications must be submitted by email to: procurement@cnfa-procashew.org

Disclaimers

This is a solicitation only. Issuance of this Solicitation does not in any way obligate CNFA, the PRO-Cashew Project, or CNFA's Client to make an award or pay for costs incurred by potential offerors in the preparation and submission of an offer. In addition:

CNFA may cancel the solicitation and not award;
CNFA may reject any or all responses received;
Issuance of the Solicitation does not constitute award commitment by CNFA;
CNFA reserves the right to disqualify any offer based on offeror failure to follow the solicitation instructions;
CNFA will not compensate offerors for response to the solicitation;
CNFA reserves the right to issue award based on initial evaluation of offers without further discussion;
CNFA may negotiate with shortlisted offerors for their best and final offer;
CNFA may reissue the solicitation or issue formal amendments revising the original specifications and evaluation criteria before or after receipt of proposals;
CNFA may modify the specifications without issuing a formal notice to all offerors when the revisions are immaterial to the scope of the solicitation.
CNFA may choose to award only part of the activities in the solicitation, or issue multiple awards based on multiple activities.
CNFA reserves the right to waive minor proposal deficiencies that can be corrected prior to award determination to promote competition.

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