Food security is one of the most crucial factors in every nation’s growth and development. This is the reason why countries like Finland and Ireland, with a high Global Food Security Index (GSFI) of 83.7 and 81.7 respectively, make food security their top priority.

Africa and Nigeria in this context are lagging behind; Nigeria, for example, scored 42.0 points out of 113 countries surveyed globally in the ranking for GSFI.
The implication here is that Nigeria, the self-styled giant of Africa, has a food security problem, and this is where experts with the right knowledge and passion for agricultural innovations like the retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Azeez Oluwole are making giant strides with all his agricultural initiatives.

Before he joined the Navy, where he had quite a remarkable career serving, he was exposed to the beauty of cultivating and growing cash crops and fish at a very young age, a passion that still drives him to this day.

Pragmatism is one of the core values instilled in him, and properly armed with the right skill set, FarmKonnect International came into being, a concept that started out as a mere hobby and later grew into a multi-million dollar initiative, attracting investors who saw the idea as a veritable financial instrument that embraces innovative and cutting-edge agricultural investments and practices that integrate technology to enhance its delivery.

Simply put, FarmKonnect is all about engaging in agricultural practices in a more profitable and modern way.
Going forward, Oluwole introduced Agricultural Real Estate (AgRE), another amazing agricultural scheme that explores a collaborative finance model that makes provision for more significant investment and shared success in agricultural ventures.

Conceptualising the art of owning actual real estate, he thought of replicating this in agricultural terms, where a group of individuals can collectively own and operate farming facilities bordering a designated settlement, and then whatever farm produce generated over the course of a farming cycle can be traded for monetary gains.

A subsidiary of FarmKonnect International and operating within its ecosystem, FAGEX took off beautifully.
The idea of proper data collection and collation for Agricultural planning and decision-making though novel in Nigeria, became a thing, notably in our agricultural sector, where the importance of data is relegated to the background and therefore seen as not
important.

This move led to the establishment of Nigeria’s first Agricultural Smart Farming and Data Center This move led to the establishment of Nigeria’s first Agricultural Smart Farming and Data Center in Oyo State. An outstanding facility that offers real-time data on soil conditions, weather patterns, and crop health, as well as farm surveillance, irrigation management, and precision farming solutions tailored towards making certain that farmers are given the requisite information to approach farming with precision, thereby engendering better yield.

AFIDE came full stream and revolutionised the savings culture of Nigerians by ensuring that participants who enrolled in the programme saved responsibly by projecting scarce funds to useful agricultural ventures and projects.

Agricultural and Financial Inclusion for Daily Earners, or AFIDE for short, accorded daily earners the opportunity to save and also earn from varied agricultural projects they had a stake in, invariably contributing to the growth of the sector.

According to the Bulgarian-based data collection portal, TrendEconomy, the value of exports of the commodity referred to as “Edible vegetables and certain roots and tubers” from Nigeria totaled $2.05 million in 2022. To tap into this sector, the Wave City Project under FarmKonnect International took effect.

The programme was specifically created to establish one million square meters of agricultural infrastructure dedicated to vegetable production, with its earning potential estimated to be in the region of 30billion Naira annually, while creating jobs and extending the value chain of this investment beyond the imagination of both the investors and the initiator.

The project has been discontinued from what we gathered, but there are indications that it will be revived soon, giving Nigerians the opportunity to be a part of this rather ambitious but achievable initiative.

Snail farming, or heliculture, as it is referred to in agricultural science parlance, is another very profitable agri-business model that brings in a sizeable amount of revenue to Heliculturists.

Statistically, the global snail farming industry is worth over $12 billion, and 425,000 tons of snails are consumed globally per year, making it an interesting agroproduct that gave rise to the Egbeja Snail Village, another noble project initiated by FarmKonnect.

Retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Azeez Oluwole Saheed is a philanthropist whose burning desire is to bring millions of young people out of poverty, which led to the establishment of ASEF (Agricultural Social Entrepreneurship Foundation), a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and revitalising agriculture, particularly among youth and young women.

The main motive of the foundation is to make young people understand that agriculture goes beyond planting, tilling, and harvesting crops and farm animals under the scorching sun and unfavourable weather situations, but is a vocation that, if properly practiced, has the potential to provide food on their empty tables and pull them out of poverty.

It is not yet Uhuru for Nigeria as far as making the right and practicable agricultural development decisions; however, having individuals who are ready to break the odds to ensure the right thing is done has helped propel the sector forward, and we have the likes of retired Navy Lieutenant Azeez Oluwole Saheed to thank for this feat.

Finally, one will daresay that retired Navy Lieutenant Commander is indeed one of the changemakers who has utilised the power of cultivating things to put Nigeria on the global map as an agricultural powerhouse by effectively deploying technology and futuristic methods to approach agriculture while helping to build a strong agro-economy, not just for Nigeria, but for Africa at large.