The Pan African Farmer: Rotimi Olawale

– Omoluabi John

One of the Yoruba profound proverbs indicates thus, “Gbogbo igi ti elegbede ba fi owo ba, didun ni.’ The axiom, roughly translated, symbolises elegbede (chimpanzee) as imbued with Midas touch. With its coarse palms, elegbede leaves a weighty impact on any bark it beats.

The above analogy hugely captures the dynamism and uniqueness that formed the personality of a ground breaking agripreneur, Rotimi Olawale. Olawale, who is the Chief Executive Officer of JR Farms Africa; a leading agric firm, is an outstanding player in the continent’s agricultural sector and an energetically engaging international speaker. This graduate of Philosophy and Comparative Religion with appreciable experience in teaching didn’t venture into agric business for economic survival. He notes that the desire to extend the frontiers of agricultural potential to benefit the majority guided his foray into the sector.

He states, “I grew up surrounded by agribusiness. During my holidays as a secondary school student, I went to work at a garri (a stable food in Nigeria) processing factory owned by my uncle at Ogbomoso, Oyo State. These experiences afforded me first-hand contact with agribusiness and built my passion for it. “I started with agricultural advocacy in 2012, writing about opportunities in the sector and calling on the government and private sector to get involved. Afterwards, I started a farmer’s cooperative to support local farmers, initiated a garri processing project and now, a coffee trade in Rwanda, cocoa in Ivory Coast and more to come.’’

From the outset, Olawale has a precise focus on what he wanted before establishing JR Farms Africa. The energetic agripreneur refused to tailor his concept to echo a shoe shop where everybody tries their sizes in an all comers, trial and error approach. He adds, “I started JR Farms to undertake opportunities for growth and business that abound in the agricultural value chain. Through this, we are able to contribute to efforts aimed at realising sustainable food production and increased incomes for farmers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.’’

Like every purpose-driven entrepreneur, Olawale specifically dabbled into the sector to fill some noticeable gaps posing as stumbling blocks.  According to him, in the agric sector today, the country is confronted with two crucial gaps; inability to meet domestic food requirements, and export at quality levels required to serve the export market successfully and earn foreign exchange. He says, “These we are poised to solve. Already, we run a processing facility for garri, supplying major markets in Lagos thereby helping to meet local demand for the commodity and our coffee exports are delivered fresh meeting requirements of international markets.’’

Blessed with a vision extending beyond the domain of Nigeria, the agriculturist notes that he has a pan African vision to explore agribusiness potential not only in Nigeria, but also in various parts of Africa and beyond. On the partnership with the Rwanda Farmers Coffee Company and how Nigeria has benefited from the partnership, Olawale linked that synergy to his pan-African vision. He explains, “I recognised the need for African grown, high quality, single origin coffee in Nigeria and this spurred me to proceed with the partnership. JR coffee has, among other things, provided employment in Nigeria, generated extra source of revenue for businesses and promoted fair trade between Nigeria and Rwanda. “We have also introduced a healthy coffee consuming habit to Nigerians. These are amongst the numerous benefits of the partnership.’’  The collaboration, he discloses, has also led to the sales of the product in coffee shops, hotels, malls, supermarkets, offices and online stores. Besides, JR Farms successfully exported coffee to Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and the United States of America.

Not one to stick to only one method when there are other workable ways to make impact, the resourceful agripreneur empowered many prisoners with a unique project tagged, “Inmates Farming Scheme.’’ Olawale says the programme was launched to train and empower inmates in vegetable farming. “This is to enable them acquire the needed knowledge and skill for farming, earn a living decently while in prison and save a percentage of their profits which they will access after serving out their prison terms. “This initiative is not only creating jobs and boosting food security in Nigeria, but also reducing criminal tendencies as farming skill and knowledge acquired during incarceration would position inmates to take up opportunities in agriculture, thereby helping them become economically responsible and productive upon regaining their freedom,’’ he states.

He i also not resting on his laurels as celebrated farmer in Africa. His organisation is currently working relentlessly to extend the scheme to other prisons across the country to give it a robust national spread. Giving an insight on that, he says, “Expansion to other prisons is in the works. As soon as we are done with the bureaucratic processes, we will hit the ground running.’’ Also disturbed by paucity of funds for farmers in their quest to beef up food security, the JR Farms boss established the Cedar Farmers’ Cooperative Society to provide credit facilities to African farmers. He observes that Nigerian farmers are taking a great advantage of the initiative, noting however that there’s still room for more farmers to come on board.

To Olawale, agriculture is a highly lucrative business in Nigeria. But he admits that despite that, nothing good comes easy and it is only with persistence that one can uncover the immense gains in agriculture. Consequently, the agripreneur states that for Nigeria to return to the era when agriculture was the goose that laid its golden eggs before the discovery of crude oil, government has to prioritise the development of the agric sector as a viable means of creating wealth and reducing unemployment rate. He says, “This implies driving the sector as a business, and not as a development programme dependent on foreign aids. This I believe will set the right trajectory for reaping the desired economic rewards from our agricultural sector. Also youths, irrespective of their discipline and career paths, need to be encouraged to utilise various field of expertise in finance, communications, commerce, science and technology to seek solutions and come up with disruptive innovations that will change the face of agriculture in the country.’’

The passion of this young and astute farmer for agriculture is sublime as captured in his submission thus, “I intend to raise an army of agribusiness giants who will create jobs and wealth in Nigeria and contribute to the development of our agricultural sector.’’ It is not a hidden fact that doing business in Nigeria can be frustrating especially for the faint-hearted because of the attendant challenges. Olawale is not unaware of these realities being a risk taker himself. He, however, notes that passion and God kept him going. “I go to God for directions before I take any pivotal steps and I constantly remind myself of the goals I have set for myself,’’ he states.