Ethiopia Senior Avocado and Trials Coordinator (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.

One Acre Fund has been working with farmers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia since 2014, with a specific focus on trees since 2018. The Ethiopia program has now expanded into the South Region of Ethiopia in 2024. Our aim with the tree program is to provide not only short-term income opportunities but also long-term benefits, such as soil health improvements and erosion control, so that farmers build resilience over time.

About the Role

The Avocado and Trials Coordinator will be a vital part of our Product Innovations team, reporting directly to the Innovation Specialist. This role sits at the intersection of operational execution, field coordination, and data collection. Your role is to ensure effective day-to-day nursery operations and field trials across South and Central Ethiopia, leveraging field evidence and data to support our avocado production model and maximize farmer impact.

You will manage a field team of full-time Tree Officers (1-2) and temporary staff (5-10), implementing standardized operational plans on the ground. You will handle decentralized nursery logistics, ensure grafting success, and capture field results to support program improvements. This role is focused on streamlining avocado operations and innovation trials through hands-on coordination across our regions of operation.

In a single week, you might start by hosting a technical capacity-building session for Tree Officers and local nursery owners on advanced grafting techniques. Next, you would analyze seedling survival data from various decentralized sites to check production metrics. You would then spend the latter half of your week traveling to nurseries to audit nursery production techniques, provide technical oversight and support to tree teams, troubleshoot operational bottlenecks on the spot, and evaluate progress on ongoing trials. You would also oversee data quality monitoring for avocado grafting success rates, facilitate grafter bonus payouts, and engage with our nursery operators to share insights.

Responsibilities

• Central Nursery Ownership: Oversee the setup, daily operational workflows, and logistics of our central nurseries. You hold full accountability for the end-to-end seedling production cycle, from growth and grafting to transport and regional distribution.
• Small Nursery Production & Quality Support: Help smaller, local partner nurseries grow tree seedlings efficiently across our areas of operation. Enforce high-quality standards and agronomic best practices (for example, targeting avocado grafting operations in nurseries).
• External Expert Monitoring: Design and implement data quality tracking systems to monitor the success rates and performance bonus payouts for specialized external workers and experts (such as local contract grafters).
• Field Trial Management & Data Ownership: Directly manage the setup, field tracking, and execution of active Innovation trials and technical infrastructures (such as shade net setups). You will design or adapt data collection tools to ensure accurate field tracking.
• Technical Training & Resource Development: Author, refine, and update technical training materials, toolkits, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Lead capacity-building sessions to train full-time Tree Officers, temporary staff, and nursery owners.
• Research, Design, & Analytics: Use your expert agronomic insights to support the design and refinement of our long-term production models. Conduct desk research, supply chain analyses, and targeted investigations to guide programmatic decisions and scaling.
• Cross-Functional Coordination: With your manager’s support, lead coordination and organize learning forums or debriefs with internal teams and external government stakeholders at the woreda, kebele, and zonal levels.
• Operational Problem Solving & Data Auditing: Provide close training, oversight, and quality auditing for field data collection teams. Apply quick thinking and expert independence to troubleshoot logistical and environmental bottlenecks on the spot.

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• Experience: A minimum of 3 years of professional experience leading tree nursery operations, social enterprise field execution, or agricultural field programs.
• Avocado Expertise: A minimum of 3 years of experience and expert-level knowledge of avocado propagation, grafting management, plant health diagnostics, and smallholder farming systems.
• Field-First Mindset: Significant experience working in rural or last-mile settings. A willingness to execute intensive field travel, spending 50%+ of your working time in the field, adapting quickly to decentralized, changing environments.
• Data & Project Management: Proven ability to manage field data collection, analyze basic performance metrics, and use field evidence to recommend operational improvements.
• Team Leadership: Experience managing teams directly, supervising field personnel (such as extension staff or technical officers), and coordinating large groups of temporary seasonal laborers.
• Education: A Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture (specifically Agroforestry or Horticulture) is required.
• Language: English and Amharic required. Proficiency in Wolaytigna or other languages relevant to South and Central Ethiopia are preferred.
• Nice to have: Prior formal training or certification in grafting techniques.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Sodo, Ethiopia

Benefits

Health insurance, paid time off 

Eligibility

This role is open to Ethiopian citizens, permanent residents, and origin cardholders.

Application Deadline

06 October 2026. Please note that we hire on a rolling basis which means that applications are reviewed and processed on a continuous basis until a hire is made. Women are highly encouraged to apply.

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.