Agriculture Expert (consultant)

Project: Myanmar Agricultural Crop Yield Estimation

Title: Agriculture Expert (consultant)

Purpose and Objectives:

Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) is an autonomous international organization that works to build the resilience of people and institutions to disasters and climate change impacts in Asia and the Pacific. ADPC currently implements the project “Myanmar Agricultural Crop Yield Estimation” to use remotely sensed data and statistics to estimate the yields of several crop types in Myanmar when access on the ground and to authentic data are limited.

The agriculture sector has traditionally been Myanmar’s main industry, employing over half of the labor force. Rice is the most important agricultural commodity of Myanmar. The Ayeyawady, Bago and Yangon regions of Myanmar make up almost half of the country’s harvested rice area. Crop yield forecasting is important for assessing national food security and to provide timely information for the optimum management of growing crops. Accurate and real-time crop yield forecasting is becoming essential for planners, policymakers, and practitioners in decision-making. The conventional methods used for yield estimation are time-consuming, resource-intensive, labor-intensive, and prone to errors. State-of-the-art advanced technology such as, remote sensing, can help assess vegetation parameters, crop vigor and yield estimation based on vegetation status due to the availability of high quality spatial and temporal information about land surface features including environmental changes which impact crop growth conditions. Myanmar requires the rapid development of crop yield estimates for the country for food security planning and policy making, using methods that do not require field work.

Expected Outputs:

The following outputs are expected from the assignment:

1. Review of the approach developed to estimate crop yields as well as the data used and the outputs from the analyses
2. Expert guidance on how to consider and integrate agricultural parameters that may impact crop yields into the analyses

Responsibilities and Tasks:

1. Provide technical input for remote sensing applications linked to crop yield estimation and agriculture practices in Myanmar
2. Provide technical input for advanced statistical modeling for future yield estimation
3. Review and provide technical input and suggestion on the reports

Working Principles:

The consultant will report to the Director of Climate Resilience. The contract will be managed by the Climate Resilience Department of ADPC.

Qualifications:

The consultant is expected to possess the following qualifications.

1. At least Master’s Degree in agricultural sciences, or relevant areas
2. Deep understanding of the characteristics of rice, maize, bean and pulse
3. knowledge and experience on crop yield estimation using remote sensing desirable
4. Knowledge of Myanmar agricultural practices desirable
5. Record of productive engagement and collaboration with scientists, stakeholders and/or users
6. Excellent English writing skills

Duty Station: Home-based

Duration: This assignment will be from 15 August to 14 October 2022

Condition of payment: Payment will be made based on completion of outputs, as per the payment schedule agreed by the consultant and ADPC.