Consultants to deliver training workshops to strengthen the capacity of agrovet owners/operators

1.    Project Background

Value Chain Development of Fruit and Vegetables project (VCDP) is the joint initiative of Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) with the support from Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aimed to increase income of 10,000 smallholder farmers of 37 rural/municipalities aside BP highway and Prithvi highway extending to Syangja and Hetauda - Dumkibas section of the East-West highway. The project has three major outcome areas (i) improve agricultural productivity through increased capacity of government agencies and better access to production technologies by farmers, (ii) reduce postharvest losses of selected fruit and vegetables by postharvest technology development, and (iii) better market linkages at local level.

Commercialization of agriculture has fostered the increased use of external agricultural inputs like seed, pesticides and fertilizers. Along with the increased demand of these agricultural inputs in semi/commercial production sites, number of private inputs suppliers (commonly named as agrovets) started their business in those sites. These agrovets initially traded the inputs but started to provide imbedded services after developing experiences on the sector. Their roles become more prominent in rural areas after getting few trainings from the private input companies (to promote their products) and reducing services from public sector (low number of agriculture technicians and changing extension modality). In these days, the agrovets become the part and parcel of dissemination of the production technologies. Despite their contribution to the agricultural development, many challenges are appeared on the services provided by the agrovets. It was experienced during the field visits that many agrovets are not fully complying the government rules and regulation. For examples, unregistered seed and pesticides are being sold to the farmers. Likewise, many unnecessary and/or irrelevant pesticides are promoting/selling to the farmers because of low level of technical competencies. Since agrovets are the first contact point to farmers in these days, better services to farmers could not be expected without their capacity enhancement. Since many of them are not fully following the government rules and regulations, it is necessary to update the current context and increase of awareness on the consequences of not abiding the government rules and regulations before lobbying for imposing for the legal action. In this scenario, the project has planned to hire a consultant for upgrading the capacity of agrovet owners/operators.

2. Consultancy services and responsibilities

üDraft session plan of three-day long training upon reviewing training course contents of National Seed Board and Plant Quarantine and Pesticide Management Centre designed for the agrovet owners and finalize it after incorporating the feedback from the project team,

üReview of laws, by-laws and directives related to seed, pesticides and fertilizers trade and uses in Nepal,

üCoordinate with resource persons identified for the specific sessions and ensure the quality of the delivery,

üPrepare and compile the handouts of all sessions and handover it to the participants upon completion of the training,

üDeliver three training events within October 2019 to strengthen the capacity of agrovet owners/operators in relation to vegetable seeds, pesticides and fertilizers (including micro-nutrients) so that their service delivery to the farmers (their customers) or the project beneficiaries could be improved,

üPrepare a brief task completion report of each slot of training within 7 days of the completion of the training,

üUpdate the specific section of the training content and guideline where necessary from the second slot onwards.  

There will be 3 training slots in between September 2019 and October 2019.

Table 1: Workdays distribution for different activities for capacity strengthening of agrovet owners/operators  

The consultants should have following qualifications and competencies:

ü  At least Master’s degree in related field,

ü  Proven experiences of successfully facilitating training to agricultural technicians, lead farmers and mobilizing the multi-disciplinary team of experts,

ü  Sound knowledge on relevant policy provision relating to seed, pesticides and fertilizers business and use/handling in Nepal,

ü  Experiences of designing training content, manual and guideline,

ü  Have basic computer literacy, and good command on both English and Nepali language in speaking and writing,

ü  Priority will be given to women, Dalit, Janajati and ethnic communities, as far as possible.  

ü  Detailed session plan and handouts

ü  Work/assignment delivery plan

ü  Event completion report

6.Consultancy fee, benefits and payments

ü  The daily consultancy fee will be not more than Rs. 10,000 subjected to vary with experiences and expertise. If project failed to arrange resource persons from government entities, the consultant can hire resource persons (with at least Bachelor’s degree qualification with 5 years experiences) from outside but their CV should be cleared by the project team. In such case, surface transportation charge and session fee at a rate of Rs 3000 per session can be claimed. The external consultant can only be used in the case of specific technical sessions where technical competency of the lead consultant is mediocre, 

ü  The above-mentioned consultancy is subject to applicable tax as per the prevailing rule,  

ü  To cover the food and accommodation expenses during the travel days and field work, a consultant is eligible to claim DSA at a rate of Rs 2000/day. When the event is residential, the organizer will manage the food and accommodation however the consultant is eligible to claim incidental allowance at the rate of Rs 1000/day.

ü  There should be clear and specific field travel plan duly approved by the concerned point person of the project,

ü  The consultant should arrange her/his transportation during travel to and from the event venue(s). The project will reimburse the actual cost of public transportation.  

ü  Payment installment will be as per following;

·         First installment (40%): Detailed work plan, training content/schedule, draft handout

·         Final installment (60%): Submission of assignment completion report and acceptance by project

Interested and eligible candidates are requested to submit updated CV highlighting the relevant competency, expertise and experience along with an application letter mentioning the daily consultancy fee. The application can be submitted via email to info@vcdp.org.np no later than 21 September 2019. Sharing of past work outputs is appreciated.