Avocado Orchard Manager

About the role

The Avocado Manager will oversee day‑to‑day orchard operations at Simba Farm, ensuring high standards of plant health, productivity and compliance with agricultural audits.

Key responsibilities

• Maintain plant hygiene, monitor for stress, disease and pest incursion, and implement nutrition and pest control measures.
• Manage irrigation systems, spraying equipment and field tools, and schedule irrigation based on crop stages.
• Control quality and handling of harvested fruit, and apply techniques such as pruning, grafting, weeding, mulching and field drainage.
• Develop and maintain an avocado crop model to track phenological growth stages and support a gap‑filling program for uniform orchard stands.
• Source quality avocado scions, plan seedling grafting forecasts and ensure timely delivery.
• Supervise and train farm labour, promoting organic practices, safety and productivity.
• Collaborate with the agronomy team to keep pest and disease levels below thresholds and ensure compliance with GAP, Global GAP and other audit standards.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree or diploma in Agriculture, Horticulture, Agronomy, Crop Science or related field.
• 3–5 years hands‑on experience in orchard or plantation management, preferably with avocado or other fruit crops.
• Proven expertise in pruning, grafting, irrigation management and pest/disease control.
• Experience leading farm labour teams and ensuring safety and productivity.
• Strong knowledge of avocado growth stages, phenology and seasonal planning.

Required skills

• Irrigation scheduling and management
• Fertilizer application
• Pest and disease management
• Pruning and grafting techniques
• Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Global GAP compliance