Consultant to train Seed producers on Local Seed Business (LSB) at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa Phase II (N2Africa II)’  
Summary Information  Services required Consultant to conduct training to Community Based Seed Producers on Local Seed Business Development  Project/Program Title IITA N2Africa Project: Putting Nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa (N2Africa Project Nigeria)  Nature of Contract Individual Consultant Duration – Estimate   20 Days Expected Start Date             Immediately after concluding contract agreement Expected places of focus FCT, Sokoto and Kebbi states  

Background/project description  
Catholic Relief Services in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is implementing the “Putting Nitrogen Fixation to work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa Phase II (N2Africa II) project in Kebbi, Sokoto and FCT state since 2015. The benefit of phase I of the project were; farmers are convinced about yield enhancement effect the use of rhizobium inoculant in soybean production in Nigeria and are ready to adopt the practice as a practical way of generating more income. The project initiated community-based seed production activities. Interventions focused on increased access to improved seed by resource-poor farmers in Northern Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with the aim of strengthening the informal seed sector and delivery system. CRS-FtF built the capacity of 56 Field agents to be independent private inputs service provides (PISP) and they will be dealing with Seeds, Inoculants, P-Fertilizer, PICS bags, agro chemicals and render extension services to farmers in their various communities. 
Currently, Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project in collaboration with IITA-N2A are in the second phase of the project of implementing new strategy to create sustainable local seed businesses (LSB) through market research and links with seed companies. 
The collaborative effort of the Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods and N2A projects has played a catalytic role in dissemination of improved varieties by ensuring that community take the ownership of the seed system of focused legumes; a business model has been developed for soybean, groundnut and cowpea through community seed entrepreneur. The collaboration has caused increase in adoption of high yielding disease and pest-resistant legumes varieties which has resulted into increased in yield of these crops. However, despite its potential and opportunities in making Community Based Seed Production (CBSP) work, there are several constrains that need to be addressed to scale up the benefits of effectiveness of input supply and marketing systems. These include sustainable local seed businesses, market research and links with seed companies. The project is being implemented by CRS though a local partner; Diamond Development Initiatives.
The phase II exit strategy will build national capacity to develop locally-tailored innovative approaches to achieving the vision to sustain the benefit of rhizobium inoculant in legume production and value addition.  

Goal of the Project 
N2Africa will build sustainable, long-term partnerships to enable smallholder farmers to benefit from symbiotic N2-fixation by grain legumes through effective production technologies, including inoculants and fertilizers. The goal of the project is to contribute to improved rural household livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the project areas of FCT, Kebbi, and Sokoto State in Nigeria, by enhancing the yield of grain legumes and expanding the farm area cropped with legumes to improve incomes, and food and nutrition security.  

Objectives of the Consultancy 
The objective of this assignment is to provide to training to 79 seed producers on local seed business (LSB) in FCT, Sokoto and Kebbi States that could produce and market quality seed of varieties preferred by other farmers.  In addition, the consultant will provide coaching and monitoring to local seed business entrepreneurs to become technically equipped, professionally organised, market oriented and strategically linked to achieve commercial sustainability.  
Key tasks to be performed by consultant are the following four building block and coaching activities follow thereafter to continuously guide a group: 

Introducing and developing local seed business model:

• The consultant will develop a local seed business (LSB) model which should focus on defining an LSB and what is seed entreneurship?
• Building block 1-Training local seed businesses to be technically equipped:  The consultant will conduct an assessment to make a quick inventory- situation analysis of the CBSP training conducted previously on seed production planning, key pre-harvest and crop establishment skills to produce quality seed? how to set demonstration; what are the key harvest and post-harvest practices involved in preparation of the seed for marketing, quality control in seed production, improving LSBs access to land and land management.  The assessment should focus on the ones operational or not and why? 
• Building block 2- Training Local Seed Businesses to be professionally organized: The consultant will conduct a Training of trainers (TOT) capacity on local seed businesses to CBSPs across the targeted project communities. The consultant will also develop a detailed curriculum for training these CBSPs. A well-structured training will be conducted at a suitable central location in each of the project states. The training, which should focus on local seed businesses to be professionally organized, should emphasize ensuring functional financial management in local seed businesses; enhancing organizational management in local seed businesses; improving local seed business governance; promoting gender sensitive local seed businesses; developing a business model and a business plan for a local seed business
• Building block3- Building the technical capacity of local seed businesses to be market oriented: The consultant will build the capacity of community seed based producers across targeted project communities. The training on market oriented should focus on doing market research, marketing of local seed business, enhancing customer feedback.
•  Building block 4- Training local seed businesses to be strategically linked: The training is intended to encourage adequate planning and to facilitate effective linkages of LSBs to available services within their communities. The training will inform the project on the types of existing links with emphasis to understanding the importance of partnerships and how to manage partnerships and partnerships with value chain development initiatives.  
• Submit a detailed final report on the whole assignment.

Timeline and Deliverables schedule
This consultancy will be done in four phases (5 days each) 26th June 2017 – 30th June 2017, 3rd – 7th July, 2017, 14th- 18th August, 2017 and 11th- 15th September, 2017, all activities will be conducted with supervision, assistance, and guidance of the below Project staff
CRS (Program Managers, Agricultural Livelihoods Technical Lead) and; 
DDI Program Coordinators 
The consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:
Reporting Requirements
(Activities and/or Outputs)
To be Completed by no later than these Due Dates
Delivery Instructions
(# of copies, paper/electronic transmittals, formats, names of reviewers, etc.)
1. Submission of the detailed assessment of the situation analysis of the CSBPs over the years detailed curriculum for training field LSBs on seed businesses 
30th June, 2017 CRS and DDI staff to review assessment report and to review the approach and curriculum/ modules
2. Submission of a detailed training report on training LSBs to be professionally organized on seed businesses. This shall include sheets signed by the participants.
7th July, 2017 CRS and DDI Staff to review training plan, methodology, tools, and final training report.
3. Submission of training report provided to LSBs to be professionally organized across the targeted project communities. This shall include sheets signed by the participants. 
18th August, 2017 CRS and DDI Staff to review training plan, methodology, tools, and final training report. 
4. Submission of training report provided to LSBs to be strategically linked. This shall include sheets signed by the participants.
15th September, 2017
CRS and DDI Staff to review training, plan, methodology, tools, and final training report.
Note: CRS shall arrange all field and logistics in partnership with DDI and N2Afica and partners for 2SCALE and other Project areas to be mutually identified with the consultant
Duration of the work
The duration of the consultancy service will be 25 working days. 
How to apply
This solicitation will be judged by an evaluation panel who will use a cost/ technical best-value tradeoff analysis, i.e. the offer that results in the most appropriate solution for CRS in consideration of technical, cost, and other factors. The technical proposal is significantly more important than the cost proposal. CRS will evaluate Offeror’s proposals in accordance with the following scoring criteria: 
Technical Proposal:
1. Technical Approach (50 points) 

2. Consultant Capabilities & Past Performance (25 points) 3. Proposed Personnel (25 points)
TOTAL:     100 points

• Technical Approach (up to 4 pages): Offerors must include an overall approach to implementing the scope of work outlined in Section 2 that demonstrates their methodology, technical ability, and experience in implementing detailed work plan. Offerors must provide evidence of their ability to implement the scope of work with respect to achieving specific tasks and meeting proposed deadlines.
• Consultant Capabilities and Past Performance (up to 2 pages): Offerors must provide a description of the company/organization’s specific experience delivering similar services. Additionally, offerors must include 3 past performance references of similar work previously implemented as well as contact information for the companies for which such work was completed. Contact information must include at a minimum: name of point of contact who can speak to the offeror’s performance, name and address of the company for which the work was performance, and email and phone number of the point of contact.
• Proposed Personnel: This section must include CVs of proposed personnel to provide the services required. Offerors may include up to two CVs of up to three pages each. Personnel will be judged on relevant demonstrated experience, academic qualifications, and language skills. Candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements set forth by this request will not be given a score.  

Cost Proposal:

• The cost proposal is not scored, but will be negotiated as part of the best value analysis. Cost proposals will be evaluated for reasonableness, realism, completeness, and competitiveness. The overall price will be used as part of the tradeoff analysis to determine final selection.
• CRS will pay directly for other expenses for the consultant like accommodation, per diems, transport and travel logistics, enumerators, and printing of any materials to be used.