Animal husbandry adviser
Our placements need a variety of farming skills, with requests for dairy specialists and cattle farmers rising this year. Placements include providing technical training in farming schools. Responsibilities also include providing practical support to develop farming techniques and farm management systems with individual farmers or cooperatives.
You’ll help to increase cattle farm or dairy productivity, working with trade associations and farm cooperatives at a local and national level. You’ll help to establish or develop dairy regulations and farming policy and improve to food supply chains.
You’ll be qualified and experienced in animal production, farm management, breeding and raising livestock, dairy production, processing and distribution.
You could be working in Mongolia, Tajikistan and Zambia.
Example placements
Dairy quality control adviser at Lilongwe Dairy
Malawi
Lilongwe Dairy provides a living for many smallholder dairy farmers, however the income it generates is greatly affected by the poor quality of its output. You’ll be working at the dairy to improve the quality of the raw milk entering the dairy from the producer groups. By reducing the losses to the producers from rejected sour milk and improving the quality of the product coming out of the dairy, you’ll help to reduce overhead costs and improve the farmers’ confidence in their product.
As a result of increased sales and increased profitability to the processor, higher prices can be paid to the producers for their milk without increasing the cost to the consumer. You’ll directly benefit both the dairy farmers and the producers by sharing your experience and skills in milk processing.
What does the role involve?
- Improving the overall quality of raw milk entering the dairy
- Improving the quality of the milk products at Lilongwe Dairy.
- Training colleagues in technical aspects of quality assurance
- Providing a training plan for improved hygiene, testing, handling and storage of milk
- Creating inspection and sampling plans for raw materials packaging materials and finished products
Skills, qualifications and experience required
You’ll have several years’ experience working in the dairy sector, specifically in quality control. You’ll able to create quality control inspection and testing plans and also be confident in training others to undertake and analyse tests on raw milk. You’ll be working with few resources, so it’s essential to make inventive use of what’s already there.
You’ll need a positive outlook and an ability to work with a wide range of people in solving problems. By involving the staff members in decisions, you’ll find it easier to make changes, so an outgoing nature will be very useful.
And the rest...
You’ll be working in the capital Lilongwe and will probably be living in a VSO guesthouse near the city centre. The city is very sociable with many other expats and VSO volunteers living there. This ensures that there’s a fairly busy social side to life as a volunteer. There are art galleries, restaurants and shops, but Lilongwe is also a very green and calm city. From Lilongwe it is possible to visit the rest of Malawi’s beautiful countryside and nature reserves.
Well ask you to commit 12-24 months to make a sustainable contribution to our development goals. In return, well give you comprehensive financial, personal and professional support. We'll provide you with extensive training before your placement, and our financial package includes a local living allowance, return flights, accommodation, insurance and more. When you return to your home country, we'll help you to resettle and many of our returned volunteers stay involved with us long after their placement ends.
