Job Postings

The Global Horticulture Initiative is a dynamic organisation, that  sometimes has positions posted. To view up-to-date job opportunities with the GlobalHort, please click here.

Staff

Dr. Remi Kahane, Executive Secretary

Dr Juergen Anthofer, Portfolio Manager

Dr. Po-Yung Lai, Portfolio Manager

Gladys Machange, Assistant-Secretary

Jerry Miner, Webmaster and Communication Officer

 

 

Secretariat

The Global Horticulture Initiative Secretariat, hosting administrative, technical and virtual network operations, was initially based at AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center headquarters in Taiwan, to minimize operational and start-up infrastructural costs. Currently the Secretariat of the Global Horticulture Initiative has found its ground at the AVRDC’s Regional Center for Africa, which has over 10 years of experience in its global mandate: vegetable research and development.

Administrative Duties
The Global Horticulture Initiative Secretariat is providing administrative support to the Global Horticulture Initiative interim Executive Committee and the Advisory Group through its administration staff. The staff will handle fiscal affairs, budgetary and personnel issues, administrative management aspects, and legal and logistic support.

Communication and Strategic Capacity
Technical staff will be responsible for planning and implementing the work agenda, covering all of the research for development themes. This staff duty will also include the information and communication networks. The networking partners are not necessarily gathered in one place, and will therefore benefit from the virtual status of the Global Horticulture Initiative.

Monitoring and Evaluation
The monitoring and evaluation activities would appraise the impact of Global Horticulture Initiative operations and propose adjustments to increase effectiveness. Evaluations will be mainly conducted by a virtual group of external agents that will report to the Global Horticulture Initiative Secretariat.

Secretariat Staff

Dr. Remi Kahane, Executive Secretary of the Global Horticulture Initiative (2007-2010), worked as Allium crops specialist in tissue culture and breeding for a French  farmers’ cooperative (1987-2001) and was Horticulture Project Manager at CIRAD (2002-2006). He has developed an intensive knowledge of vegetable farming in more than 20 tropical countries, strengthened vanilla research program and urban horticulture initiative in CIRAD and ISHS, expanded its European research outputs on Allium into tropical areas with seed companies or with AVRDC, and contributed to capacity building through research papers, PhD and MSc supervision and lectures or training courses at university or private sector level. 

 

Dr Juergen Anthofer has joint GlobalHort in June 2008 as portfolio Manager. He worked as an agricultural advisor for the Sedentary Farming Systems Project (FSFP) in Ghana (1996-2000), a development project supported by the German Development Cooperation (GTZ) and the German Development Service (DED). During that time, he carried out adaptive research for which he earned a PhD in Agricultural Sciences by the University of Hohenheim. He worked as scientific co-worker at the Universities of Kassel and Hohenheim as well as consultant in various short to medium term assignments in the fields of agricultural research and development in Asia and Africa (2001-2005). During the last two years, he worked as Researcher on Integrated Natural Resource Management for the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), based in Aleppo, Syria. His position at GlobalHort is partially funded by Centrum fuer Internationale Migration und Entwicklung (CIM). 

Dr. Po-Yung Lai has recently joined the Arusha staff in a temporary one-year assignment as a Portfolio Manager with GlobalHort.   Po-Yung Lai, born in Taiwan, received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in the U.S.  He comes to GlobalHort with over 30 years of teaching and administrative experience.  Dr. Lai was approached by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (Taiwan ICDF), the major donor country of GlobalHort, to join the small, yet well experienced staff of GlobalHort.  Within the capacities associated with his various positions, Dr. Lai became deeply involved in the development of solutions for a multitude of problems or issues confronting farmers and particular industries such as ornamental, vegetable, fruit, and other horticultural or field crops.  When serving as the Assistant Director at the University of Hawaii (UH), Dr. Lai worked closely not only with county agents and extension specialists but also with farmers.  Po-Yung is an enthusiastic problem-solver at heart and is a trusted guardian of the interests and wellbeing of farmers and other stakeholders.  

Gladys Machange is Assistant-Secretary of GlobalHort.  In 2005 she received her B.Sc in Agronomy from Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania.  From 2005-2007 she worked as an assistant farm manager at Gomba Estate Ltd. in Arusha.  Previous to taking her current position she worked for AVRDC-RCA as administrative assistant to the Vegetable Breeding and Seed System project (vBSS). 

 

Jerry Miner has taken on a year's assignment from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to be GlobalHort's first Webmaster in Charge of Communications starting January 7, 2008.  He comes to GlobalHort with over thirty years experience in the information management field.  Mr. Miner completed his undergraduate degree at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and obtained his M.L.S. (Library Science) from the University of Toronto.  Mr. Miner has worked as an academic librarian at the University of Saskatchewan, the University of New Brunswick, and Acadia University.  He has also worked in the public library sector as the Union Catalogue Librarian for the Nova Scotia Provincial Library in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  For the past 27 years, Mr. Miner has been the Head of Information Services at the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre, Kentville, Nova Scotia.  In this position he was a member of the Canadian Agriculture Library Network which is the oldest federal library system in Canada and is also the largest agriculture and food science library in Canada. In 1997 Mr. Miner was the recipient of an Agcellence award for innovation for his participation in the Agriweb Canada initiative.  In 1998 the AAFC Research Branch presented him with another award for his work as an AAFC Internet pioneers.  Always interested in the web as an educational tool, Mr. Miner from 1997-1999, through a Canada Interchange with Acadia University, served as the first Program Head at Acadia University's Vaughan Memorial Library to leverage the use of the Internet for teaching and life-long learning.  As a result of his efforts in this position Chatelaine Magazine's Sept. 2000 Webguide acknowledged his Good Health Online website to be "one of the most helpful sites of its kind in Canada".  Mr. Miner is very excited about having been given the opportunity to work on a fine global initiative such as this one and hopes that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will become one of its funding partners. For more information on Mr. Miner's Tanzanian adventure you may visit an article that was published in a Canadian newspaper just prior to his arrival in Arusha.