John Agboola is an agriculturist/farmer with a passion for agricultural research for development. He is a value chain catalyst with a degree in Agricultural Economics and Extension from Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. He is currently running a 2 years AGCO Qualification Programme (AAQ) at the Strathmore Business School, Nairobi, Kenya as the only non-Kenyan in the programme.
John is committed to developing an agricultural sector that works for smallholder farmers, youth and women through his involvement in several projects and programmes such as the British America Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) market study for vegetable enterprise in Lagos State; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) multi-crop value chain studies for six commodities (maize, groundnut, cowpea, millet, sorghum and plantain) in Nigeria; socio-economic assessment of Titito community in Agbara area of Ogun State; monitoring and evaluation of community projects by Chevron Nigeria Limited; development of agricultural policies such as the Akwa Ibom state agricultural policy, the BATNF agricultural policies and the Nigeria smallholder farmers and also, the smallholder farmers and sustainable agriculture policy – a review of the Nigeria agricultural promotion policy.
He is a youth motivator, agricultural, youth and smallholder farmers’ advocate. Over the years, he has leverage on the use of social media to communicate, promote and rebrand the face of agriculture in Nigeria, Africa and at a global level while contributing to policy issues in agriculture. Apart from his online engagement, he offers free range of services such as consultancies, research, policy development, training facilitation, market and input linkages, advocacy, data analysis and visualization, market consultation, Idea Innovation and ICT for Agricultural services for young people, women and smallholder farmers.
He is the team lead of AgrindusNetwork, an initiative targeted towards creating a sense of belonging for smallholder farmers. He is also the co-founder of Go-green Africa Initiative, an agricultural incubation initiative aimed at empowering youths to take on agriculture. He is the online editor of Agric-Farmer Daily on Papeli and the current Communication Focal Person for Young Professional for Agricultural Development (YPARD) Nigeria with wide range of articles focusing on agriculture, smallholder farmers and upgrading the youth interest in agriculture.
John is currently interning at the Agribusiness Department of Strathmore Business School, Nairobi where we work on building the next generation of investors using holistic agribusiness value chain approaches and social media.
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