OLUYINKA ALAWODE, FOUNDER, FARM CAFÉ

I studied general agriculture at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria and later focused on Agricultural Extension. After graduation, I went to School of Journalism. While working as an agricultural journalist with BusinessDay, Nigeria’s foremost business newspaper, interviewing farmers, agro-processors, visiting farms, attending conferences within and outside Nigeria, I discovered there was an information gap in the agribusiness industry. I have attended different trainings mostly on writing and reporting skills – science writing, script writing, business writing and so on as well as digital marketing skills, graphic designs etc in the bid to strengthen my communication skills. I have also worked as a freelancer with WRENMedia, UK reporting and writing mainly for Spore Magazine published by Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) headquartered in the Netherlands and discovered there were still lots of untapped potentials in agriculture. Having realised that Information and Communication Technology is vital to the development of the agribusiness industry, I started Farm Café – an agribusiness information service in 2016 mainly driven by ICT. Farm Café has evolved more as a social enterprise providing information, digital marketing and B2B connections for stakeholders in the industry. To further build capacity in that regard as an Agribusiness Information Broker, I attended the course by International Centre for Research -Oriented Development in Agriculture (iCRA) in 2018 on skills for inclusive business brokerage to make agribusiness work. I keep exploring different ways of using ICT media to support existing and aspiring operators in agribusiness and to circulate information. Through my agricultural information services I started discovering that many agricultural produce, some of which are wasted and some of which are not so well- used can provide many solutions to health and beauty challenges that people experience. This information is not really new but apparently has not been well-circulated in the past and therefore not well explored. So through Farm Café I have started also disseminating information on using agricultural produce for natural health and beauty solutions. I have also gone into actually doing researches on usage of agricultural raw materials for health and beauty solutions…