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Head of Agriculture: Technical

  • Full Time
  • Masvingo
  • Applications have closed

Hippo Valley Estates Ltd and Triangle Ltd

DUE: 11 AUG 2023

Hippo Valley Estates Ltd and Triangle Ltd are situated in the South-Eastern Lowveld of Zimbabwe and together form a large agricultural concern that has in excess of 15 000 employees. The company’s operations mainly comprise of sugarcane farming and milling, sugar production, ethanol production, game, and livestock farming. The following vacancy has arisen at Hippo Valley Estates:

Job Title

Head of Agriculture – Technical, Zimbabwe

Reporting To: Chief Operating Officer

Job Level EL

Purpose of Role

To provide strategic, cost-effective leadership, as well as the introduction and maintenance of agricultural best practices throughout the sugarcane cultivation processes for both the company’s Miller cum Planter (McP) and third-party out grower operations. This role assumes executive responsibility for sustainable vertical and horizontal growth initiatives across the catchment, as well as driving efficiency and accountability for resource utilization in the agricultural divisions.

Key Accountabilities:

Agronomy

Monitor, advise and implement strategies to adopt agricultural best practice in both McP and third-party out grower operations, including but not limited to pest and disease detection, control and mitigation; seedcane planning and production; variety selection and optimization; and soil health, crop nutrition, ripening and herbicide programs and recommendations.
Provide scientific agronomic support and benchmarking to both McP and out grower divisions in the development of annual crop estimates, as well as plough out and replant programs.
Formulate plant protection and nutrition programmes and ensures adherence to good agronomic practices by the McP operations; and implements strategies to enhance the productivity of the outgrower operations.
Develop and manage agricultural information systems for use in the setting up of crop production targets and resource utilization efficiency parameters.
Set information parameters that allow estates to benchmark with other operations and best practice.
Set and compile budgets and recommend production parameters for the Agriculture division to the Head of Agricultural
Operations.
Determine Agricultural Information Systems that are in conformity with TH guidelines

Water Management

Lead, coordinate and manage the industry irrigation catchments (and related strategic stakeholder engagements and/or strategic business cases), including the optimization of reticulation, application, water demand and power supply through appropriate measurement, commercial contracting, control and benchmarking processes.
Approve and monitor irrigation and drainage policies, as well as the cost-effectiveness thereof.
Approve and monitor the annual THZ water tariffs.
Land Preparation & Infrastructure
Approve annual land preparation activities in line with budgeted cropping program.
Manage and monitor third-party service providers against efficiency, cost, quality and governance parameters.

Determine the agricultural mechanization strategies and plans.

Manage all land preparation, internal water civil infrastructure including roads through formulating and implementing machinery utilization programmes, sourcing, servicing and maintenance programmes.
the agricultural mechanization strategies and plans.
Determine on introduction of cost effective and high yielding irrigation systems and harvesting technologies.

Outgrowers

Develop and implement horizontal and vertical growth initiatives geared towards the sustainable increase in third-party out grower production. This explicitly includes the staffing structure, service offering and implementation models of the department.
Lead and develop a strong working relationship with third-party outgrowers and assume accountability for their operational performance.
Sensitivity towards the socio-political environment, ensuring that the business unit recognizes and is responsive to this reality.

Projects

Lead, design and manage cane development projects – ensuring they are competitively priced, within budget and quality standard, and follow appropriate governance and accountability protocols.
Undertake post-implementation reviews to evaluate actual performance against project feasibilities.
Source development-oriented finance for new projects.
Financial Parameters

REQUIREMENTS

Qualifications and Experience

BSc degree in Agriculture/ Agricultural Engineering.
MSc in Agricultural Engineering an added advantage.
Minimum of ten years’ senior management and operational experience directly in commercial agriculture, agribusiness, agricultural projects and/or support, with experience in sugarcane agriculture an advantage.

Technical Competencies

Commercial acumen.
Strong mathematical, analytical and scientific aptitude.
Strong problem-solving abilities.
Strong research and organizational skills.
Wide business network in the agricultural sector.

Behavioural Competencies

Assertive.
Results and detail oriented.
Persistence and patience.
Ability to work in a highly matrixed structure and to influence others.
Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills.

TO APPLY

In pursuit of the affirmative action towards gender based equal opportunity employment, eligible female applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications with a CV, certified copies of educational certificates, tertiary qualifications and National Identity card should be submitted to Recruitment.zim@tongaat.com by close of day on Friday 11 August 2023.
Please note that only short-listed candidates will be contacted. If you do not hear from us in 14 days, please consider your application unsuccessful