FAO Hiring Plankton Expert for Guyana — Apply by Nov 20

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is hiring a Plankton Expert for Guyana — a six-month international consultancy to fix the live-feed bottleneck holding back the country’s young whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) hatchery sector. The vacancy (Job ID 2602287) was posted on Friday, 6 November 2026, and applications close on Friday, 20 November 2026. If you have spent a decade running shrimp hatcheries and know microalgae and Artemia culture inside out, this is one of the most specialised fisheries-science openings of the year — and the window is only two weeks long.

This is not a desk job. The expert will work hands-on in Guyana with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Departments, training national hatchery staff, writing the standard operating procedures (SOPs) the hatchery will run on, and building a live-feed system that reliably produces healthy shrimp post-larvae. It is a consultant post under a Personal Services Agreement (PSA) — a call for expressions of interest, not a staff appointment — and it sits inside FAO project TCP/GUY/4101.

The vacancy at a glance

Item	Detail (verified 10 November 2026)
Organisation	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Post	Plankton Expert (Consultant / PSA)
Job ID	2602287
Duty station	Guyana (FAO Representation in Guyana, FLGUY)
Duration	6 months
Project	TCP/GUY/4101 — technical assistance to Guyana’s national shrimp hatchery
Posted	Friday, 6 November 2026
Application deadline	Friday, 20 November 2026, 11:59 PM
How to apply	Online only, through the Jobs at FAO portal (Job ID 2602287), with a letter of motivation
Application fee	None — FAO states it charges no fee at any stage of recruitment

A note on the deadline time: FAO’s own LinkedIn update of 7 November 2026 and the United Nations in Guyana jobs page both list the closing date as 20 November 2026, 11:59 PM. The Jobs at FAO portal displays the closing time converted to your device’s timezone — our check showed it as 21 November, 4:29 AM Central European Time, which is the same deadline rendered in a different timezone. Do not gamble on the conversion: submit well before 20 November.

Why Guyana needs a plankton expert

Guyana’s government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, is prioritising the development of Litopenaeus vannamei (whiteleg shrimp) aquaculture. The constraint, in FAO’s own words, is the limited capacity of the national hatchery to consistently produce healthy post-larvae in line with biosecurity and sanitary standards. That is where plankton comes in — and it is why this post exists.

Shrimp larvae cannot eat formulated feed in their earliest stages. They depend on live feed: microalgae for the first feeding stages, then Artemia nauplii as they grow. If the microalgae culture crashes, gets contaminated, or is nutritionally poor, the larvae starve, deform, or die — and the whole hatchery run fails. A hatchery’s live-feed room is effectively its kitchen and its pharmacy at once. FAO’s project aims to strengthen hatchery performance, staff competencies, SOPs and protocols, and a medium-term sustainability and expansion roadmap, and the Plankton Expert is the specialist who owns the live-feed half of that job.

The expert will work under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in Guyana and the technical guidance of the Lead Technical Officer for aquaculture and Blue Transformation activities, alongside an International Lead Consultant who coordinates all the technical specialists on the project. The work is deliberately sequenced with the other specialists — broodstock, larval rearing, water quality, biosecurity and nutrition — so the live-feed system matches what the larvae actually need, when they need it.

What the expert will actually do

The vacancy is unusually detailed about the work, which tells applicants exactly what FAO expects. The headline duties are:

Assess the hatchery as it runs today — broodstock management, spawning, hatching, larval rearing and post-larval quality — then recommend improvements for throughput, survival rates and larval quality.
Build the live-feed system: assess and optimise the production, quality control and management of microalgae and Artemia for shrimp larval rearing — culture initiation, scaling-up, hygiene, contamination prevention, nutritional quality and production scheduling — with practical protocols and measurable indicators for culture performance and corrective action.
Write the SOPs: develop and validate best-practice standard operating procedures across all hatchery stages, in a standardised format with a clear objective, scope, step-by-step procedures, assigned roles and monitoring indicators.
Train the people: deliver hands-on training and on-site coaching to hatchery staff on microalgae culture techniques, contamination control and culture monitoring — including at least one full live-feed culture cycle — plus structured training plans, curricula, competency assessments and certification mechanisms so the knowledge stays after the assignment ends.
Tighten biosecurity: develop biosecurity protocols, a low/medium/high risk classification system with control points and response protocols, and health management plans covering quarantine, diagnostic sampling and outbreak contingency planning.
Optimise water quality and systems: assess water sourcing and treatment and recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), and optimise temperature, salinity, pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, dissolved oxygen and alkalinity for broodstock and larval stages, plus advice on filtration, aeration and biofilters.
Modernise the hatchery: identify equipment needs and evaluate technologies such as automatic lighting, climate control, photoperiod management and larval monitoring sensors.
Measure and report: define KPIs for larval survival, post-larval yield, contamination rates and production costs, introduce digital data management (dashboards or hatchery management software), and prepare progress reports, technical notes and a final project report.

In short, FAO is not hiring someone to write a report from Rome. It is hiring a practitioner who can walk into a working hatchery, find why post-larvae are underperforming, fix the live-feed chain, teach the staff to run it, and leave behind SOPs, data systems and trained people.

Who can apply: eligibility at a glance

Requirement	What FAO asks for
Education	Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) from an institution recognised in the IAU/UNESCO list, in aquaculture, fisheries, veterinary science, marine biology or a related field. Candidates with a bachelor’s degree need two additional years of relevant professional experience.
Experience	At least 10 years in shrimp hatchery operations or commercial aquaculture hatcheries. Hands-on experience with Litopenaeus vannamei is strongly preferred.
Desirable experience	Working with government hatcheries and capacity-development programmes in the Caribbean or Latin America, or similar contexts.
Language	Working knowledge of English.
Other	Appointment is subject to medical fitness certification, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and security clearances. All selected candidates undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

The 10-year bar is the hard filter: this is a senior specialist role, not an entry-level hatchery job. The vacancy also stresses FAO’s core competencies — results focus, teamwork, communication, building effective relationships, and knowledge sharing — and notes that qualified female applicants, nationals of non- and under-represented member countries, and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

How to apply — step by step

Go to the Jobs at FAO portal (jobs.fao.org) and search for Job ID 2602287 (“Plankton Expert”). The vacancy is listed under the FAO Representation in Guyana.
Complete your online profile — FAO asks that it be accurate and complete, including employment records, academic qualifications and language skills. Your application is screened on the information in your profile, so incomplete applications are not considered.
Attach a letter of motivation to your online profile. Given the 10-year experience requirement, use it to evidence your vannamei hatchery and live-feed work specifically — microalgae and Artemia culture, contamination control, and any training you have delivered to hatchery staff.
Submit before Friday, 20 November 2026. Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal are considered — do not apply by email or through any third-party site.
Keep your documents ready: candidates may be asked for performance assessments and authorisation for verification checks of past and present work, character, education and records. Degrees must be from institutions recognised in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), the IAU/UNESCO list.

FAO charges no fee at any stage — application, interview or processing. Anybody asking for payment in connection with this vacancy is not acting for FAO.

Guyana’s fisheries moment — why this job matters beyond the hatchery

This vacancy lands as Guyana is pushing hard on fisheries and aquaculture. The same FAO country programme is upgrading the Atlantic seabob shrimp value chain through the FISH4ACP initiative, aiming to strengthen Guyana’s position as a leading exporter of seabob shrimp — read our earlier report on Guyana’s seabob plan, from co-operatives to global export by 2032. The plankton post is the other half of that story: seabob is the wild-capture export earner, while vannamei aquaculture is the farmed-production bet, and both need the same thing — reliable, high-quality seed and post-larvae.

For Indian fisheries professionals, the opening is a reminder of how the international job market is shifting. FAO’s Rome headquarters is also hiring in fisheries this month — see our report on the Fishery Officer (Climate Change) post in Rome, which closed 13 November 2026 — and specialist field consultancies like this one reward deep, hands-on hatchery experience over generic credentials. If you have run vannamei hatcheries, this is a role written for you.

What we could not verify — read before you apply

No remuneration figure is published. The vacancy lists no salary, daily rate or allowances — FAO consultant fees are set per assignment and are not stated in the announcement. We have not guessed a figure; check the terms in the portal before accepting any offer.
The exact closing time depends on your timezone. FAO displays the closure date and time based on the applicant’s device settings. Both FAO’s LinkedIn update and the UN in Guyana jobs page give 20 November 2026, 11:59 PM; treat 20 November as the last day and apply early.
This is a call for expressions of interest for a consultant roster-style engagement. It is a six-month PSA consultancy, not a fixed-term staff post, and the vacancy does not state a start date — that will be set when the assignment is confirmed.
All facts above are from the official FAO vacancy (Job ID 2602287), read on 10 November 2026, cross-checked against FAO’s LinkedIn vacancy update of 7 November 2026 and the United Nations in Guyana jobs listing of 6 November 2026. Vacancy details can change — verify the live listing on the Jobs at FAO portal on the day you apply.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a staff job at FAO?
No. It is a non-staff opportunity — a Consultant / Personal Services Agreement (PSA) engagement for six months in Guyana, under project TCP/GUY/4101.

Can I apply with a bachelor’s degree?
Yes, but you need two additional years of relevant professional experience on top of the 10-year minimum — so effectively 12 years of hatchery experience with a bachelor’s degree.

Do I need to be from Guyana or the Caribbean?
No nationality restriction is stated in the vacancy. Experience with government hatcheries and capacity-development programmes in the Caribbean or Latin America is listed as desirable, not mandatory, and the post is open to international consultants.

Is there an application fee?
No. FAO states it does not charge any fee at any stage of the recruitment process.

What is the last date to apply?
Friday, 20 November 2026, as listed by FAO’s LinkedIn update and the UN in Guyana jobs page. The portal shows the closing time in your device’s timezone, so apply well before the day ends.

Where do I apply?
Only through the Jobs at FAO portal (jobs.fao.org), Job ID 2602287. Applications by email or through third-party sites are not considered.