Head - Scientist - Agri

Roles & Responsibilities

- Supporting the management team to identify strategic R&D requirements in agronomy, farming system, soil and nutrition.

- Ensure that strategic plans accurately capture the primary issues in each R & D fields and provide details required to build appropriate technical strategies.

- Responsible for identifying communication opportunities and collaborating with grower team to work on productivity enhancement, cost minimization, Quality improvement and better reliability of production.

- Develop SOP for crop production, nutrition and IPM for delivery of quality and standard product to market at lower cost of goods.

- Develop SOP for Post-harvest management including sorting, grading, drying, packing, cold chain and till last mile logistics for quality and reliability of products and minimize wastage.

- Train all the stake holders to ensure implementation of SOPs, Agronomic observations, practices, and documentation.

- Sourcing, screening and grow out of new products to see robustness of the same for production and create a collaborative project with Seed suppliers and internal stakeholders for providing best Quality product with good Gross Margin.

- Lead the current and future projects with R & D as approved by the Executive Committee to support business goals.

- Determine and execute improved technologies used by suppliers, competitors, and customers.

- Research design and evaluate materials, assemblies, process, and equipment.

- Timely and accurate biochemical analysis and reporting of results for Quality decision making.

- Proactively identify project issues and appropriately manage them to satisfaction of stakeholder's business goals, monitor, and measure and report the performance of the field.

- Manage the R & D infrastructure, plant and equipment as required.

- Liaison with Government, Universities and regulatory agencies and private corporations to develop and commercialize new products and ensure its registrations as per regulations.

- Liaison with government bodies like ICAR and leading agricultural universities and be aware of latest agronomical developments.

- Manage the negotiation of overall price for contracts and that all projects are completed within set budget guidelines.

- Plan and execute research on unlocking new varietals of the crops planned by the strategy team.

- Advice the leadership and the RD lead on the crops to be taken up for RD.

- Develop agronomical practices that ensure cost and time efficiencies while making sure of high- quality output with minimal time and effort required to implement the practices.

- IP creation: Apply for patents to generate and protect IP that is permissible as per Indian laws

- Collaboration with other teams and partnership with external bodies.

- Advice farm ops team on deviant behaviour of the crops (like slower than expected growth, root development, deficiencies etc.)

- Collaborate with farm operations team to train on new approved practices.

- Document all phases of research and development and collaborate with IT team to prepare best-in-class tools to record, analyse and report the developments and outputs of the trials.

- Partner with research teams of vendors for new age technologies to run trials.

Education and Experience

- Postgraduate in Agriculture with minimum 5 to 10 years of experience in Breeding, TD or PD of Vegetable or Nutraceuticals.

- PhD in Vegetable Science or Nutraceuticals with 10 years of experience are preferred.

Skill Requirements

- Proven track record of managing multiple RD initiatives across multiple crops

- Awareness of Indian Agri landscape weather, soil, varietals with an added advantage for the experience with new Agri technologies (like hydroponics) etc.

- Demonstrated ability to effectively work on diverse teams and to actively participate in collaborative efforts.

- Conducting Grow out test of different crop varieties of Field & Vegetable crops.

- Good Breeding, Agronomy and Technology and Product Development skills.

- Knowledge of Computer operating skill (MS Office, Excel & PPT etc.)

- Knowledge of seed production field quality validation & monitoring skill of Field & Vegetable crops.

- Ability for DOE, develop Hypotheses, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and logical conclusion.

- Precise decision-making ability.

- Ability to handle the large team of qualified professionals.

- Good communication skill through mail, letter & verbal.

- Good time management & leadership skill.