Crop Manager at Kilombero Sugar

The successful candidate will provide direction, technical guidance and leadership in crop production and removal to ensure alignment with the strategic plan and sustainable long-term growth through interface with Optimisation and Agric Engineering. They will lead the crop estimating and production planning processes and interfaces in driving effective harvest planning and crop establishment.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

• Drive operational excellence by making informed trade-offs and driving initiatives that will deliver the greatest possible yields at optimal cost and quality levels
• Adopt and embed agreed best practices, frameworks, minimum standards and processes for all aspects of crop production (and removal where relevant)
• With Group CoE’s identify best practices (internal & external) and review policies and procedures to improve yield and financial performance.
• Contribute to reviewing Standards and operating procedures to sustainably improve yield and financial performance
• Achieve yield forecasts (together with farm supervisors), ensuring that farming (and crop removal where relevant) activities are prioritised and planned in a systematic and cost-effective way to optimise profitability
• Provide alignment between Crop Production Farms plans and Factory production Crush plans to achieve budget cane volumes and quality in line with S&OP
• Coordinate and approve annual crop production and harvest plans with farm managers, including crop establishment and husbandry across estate
• Develop, monitor and manage cane production budget and resource plan, with inputs from farm managers and service departments
• Drive rigorous performance management, biased towards rewarding strong performance and compliance with critical behaviours, and including managing consequences where required
• Develop and implement a programme to Identify and address problems and improvement opportunities with Farm Managers
• Identify and implement sustainability initiatives such land and water conservation to prevent soils erosion, soil degradation, pollution and invasive weeds and to improve water footprint and quality,
• Drive synergies across the group, effectively partnering with optimisation function and group counterparts to identify, share and embed opportunities for optimisation
• Provide input into business cases for key capital projects in Agriculture and support delivery
• Oversee effective talent and performance management and build a strong leadership team and talent pipeline within crop production, by coaching, mentoring and guiding farm supervisors
• Identify and monitor KPIs and balanced scorecards, track performance and flag any issues with individuals
• Promote and adhere to Kilombero’s procedures, policies and guidelines, including, without limitation, those relating to SHERQ, Competition Law and Anti-Bribery and Corruption (ABC) that align with ABFSugar policies

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture / Agricultural Development / Agricultural Engineering
• 10 years of experience in sugar cane agriculture and crop removal, including a minimum of 5 years in agricultural operations or in a technical advisory/subject specialist role at a middle-management level, responsible for a minimum of 3000ha
• Proven track record of effectively developing and implementing strategies through managing budgets, people and resources to meet business KPIs
• Good business acumen and agricultural expertise, with the ability to anticipate, interpret and respond to changes impacting all aspects of crop management
• A formal business/commercial qualification would be an advantage
• Strong agriculture data analysis skills

Terms of Service: The successful candidate will be engaged on a Permanent Contract.

All interested candidates, who meet the above requirements, please apply for the position on or before 15th April 2026. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.