Before the discovery of Crude Oil at Oloibiri, Bayelsa State (South-South Nigeria) in 1956, Nigeria was known for her agriculture prowess exporting farm produces to developed nations thereby boosting its economy. The most populous black nation on earth is blessed with expanse of arable land but has suffered a major setback in agriculture since attention shifted to oil exploration.

Irked by the dangers inherent in focusing on one source of income, there have been recent calls by government on the need to diversify the country’s economy and embrace its first love — agriculture — some youths especially graduates have tapped into this opportunity and one of those who are playing their roles in this instance is Sipasi Olalekan Ayodele, an Active Citizen campaigning against poverty and hunger and the Country Coordinator of African Youth Employment Initiatives, Nigeria.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Technology, University of Akure; Master’s Degree, University of Ibadan in Animal Production & Health and Animal Science simultaneously. Sipasi is certified in Capacity Building, Business Administration from African Management Institute, Nairobi, Computer Science from Lagos City Computer College, Lagos, Nigeria and attended the Rural Future Lab in Germany.

Before setting up ProtectOzone, he had “volunteered and still volunteering with several local and international NGOs among which are ONE in Africa, Voluntary Service Overseas Nigeria, Education Concern for Hunger Organization (East and West Africa), Food4All Ghana etc.”

Mr Ayodele has natural love for agriculture since his childhood. He started farming at 9 years old with just a cock and a hen –  given to him by his grandparents who made available the crucial start-ups. With careful management, he in no time multiplied his flock into hundreds.

Sipasi would later move to Lagos – the Nigeria’s economic capital (South West). As expected, his relocation adversely affected his somewhat successful livestock management but he never lost his love for animals.

As fate would have it, one of the punishments at his new school was to work with the pigs and poultry, in order to spend more time with the animals. Consequently, Sipasi would get into trouble on purpose. This activity didn’t lead to academic excellence until his final years at university when he finally got to do some practical, hands-on training and began to amaze his professors. Sipasi now holds a Master’s Degree in Animal Science from the University of Ibadan, South West Nigeria.

“Being a farmer is exciting, it allows me to show my creativity – I think Agriculture is the Master of Arts, it’s full of indigenous creativity”, said Sipasi.

Sipasi Olalekan Ayodele is the most recent recipient of the Africa Youth Award for Agriculture. The Founder of L’Afrika Integrated Farms and ProtectOzone in Nigeria was nominated for the award based on his implementation of the FFF methods, and for innovations at his poultry farm, using locally available herbal alternatives he is demonstrating to avoid the synthetic micro-nutrients in commercial poultry feed.

“Contamination in these feed products are linked to nearly a half-million deaths each year”, said Sipasi.

“L’Afrika Integrated Farms, and those they have trained, are seeing decreased livestock mortality and improvements in the health and well-being of their consumers. It is sardonic, that a land blessed with arable land and water still feeds her citizenry poison, at L’Afrika Integrated Farms, we have demonstrated production of clean poultry product from a limited land space (backyard) in order to improve the health and well-being of the society using InnoNATIVE approach.

“Currently, we are running a training with the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative of the US Consulate, Lagos to train indigent youths in sustainable best agricultural practice and Smart City Farming on the ProtectOzone Demonstration Farm which L’Afrika Integrated Farms is a key facility.”

Speaking on what the project aims to achieve, Sipasi revealed that “ProtectOzone Sustainable Livelihood Initiative is aimed at curbing ozone layer depletion through awareness raising, tree planting, establishment inclusive farms demonstration farms which is currently proving successful with our partnership with the NYSC SDGs Community Development Service due to their reach and widespread in the country.”

“On my way to Arusha, Tanzania through Addis Abba, Ethiopia in February 2015 for ECHO East Africa Symposium, the airline I traveled with echoed their appreciation to passengers on board for choosing their flight and to reward their customers, they promised to plant trees in the origin of the flight country to help combat climate change.

“During my return journey to Nigeria, I met Dr Hussien I. M. Shagar, a United Nations volunteer from South Sudan who told me for the first time in my life about voluntary service. This sparked my interest of what I could to do to help my country as obviously, the trees were not going to be planted in Nigeria but Ethiopia according to the announcer. The thought of saving our environment to curb climate change through planting of trees stirred me up as an Agriculturalist.

“As soon as I returned to my country, Nigeria, I started massive advocacy, trainings and distribution of tree seeds to combat erosion and climate change systematically using Local Content Initiative in order to penetrate the rural communities. This singular act got me Young African Leaders Initiative of President Barack Obama, Social Innovators Fellowship of LEAP Africa, 2015 Hidden Eco-Hero Award, 2016 Africa Youth Award for Agriculture to mention but a few.

Mr Ayodele has won several awards through his initiative including:

–      Champion 4 Change FEEDtheFUTURE Project of USAID

–      Gender in Agribusiness Innovation for Africa GAIA, Ghana, ProtectOzone

–      L’Afrika integrated farms were recognized at the Rural future Lab in Germany.

–      2015’s Hidden Eco-Hero Award Winner, Samsung Engineering’s Tunza Ecogeneration, Seoul, South Korea.

– Lion’s Awards, The Most Influential Participant of Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), West Africa Cohort 3, West Africa Centre for Cooperate Social Responsibility.

– Social Innovators Program & Award SIPA. LEAP Africa.

– Young African Leaders Initiative, West Africa

– Carrington Fellow of the US Consulate, Lagos

– ONE Champion, ONE in Africa

– LEAP Africa SIP Fellow

– Africa Youth Award for Agriculture

– Civil Society Award for Sustainable Environment, 2017

When asked what inspires Ayodele, he said he is “driven by the inherent potential of my country Nigeria and Continent at large.

“We should have no business with hunger in Africa, it is scandalous if we say we cannot feed ourselves and the world by 2050”, he protested.

“Imagine, a continent blessed with arable land and water, holding over 65% of the remaining world arable land. We need to put all hands on deck in resilient and climate smart agricultural practice and planting of more trees to combat hunger by 2030 in Africa, else this dream won’t be achieved until the year 2130”, he advised.