SPEAKERS CATEGORIES

1. Azeez Oluwole Saheed is very passionate about agriculture. He started his life as a farm boy in a small garden in Mokola Ibadan, where his father grew vegetables and fruits. This experience became the foundation for his passion for agriculture. In 1991, young Oluwole became an aquaculture apprentice under his brother Mr Yusuf Abiodun Azeez, where he gained practical knowledge and experience on fresh fish aquaculture. He also made his first investment into that agricultural field in 2001.2. Trained as a chemist, Oluwole built a career as a versatile military officer of the Nigerian Navy and a maritime security specialist. He believes that a fundamental factor to world peace and maritime safety is food security. Consequently, he decided to turn his guns to ploughs, convinced that food security will promote peace that warships and missiles cannot. As a result, he voluntarily resigned his presidential commission to turn his passion into a Mission. 3. This Mission gave birth to FarmKonnect Nigeria, a side project in 2016 with a ridiculously meagre seed investment of 30,000 Naira ($200). The project later grew into a company which attracted investments from friends and colleagues. After two years of concept testing and foundation building, FarmKonnect became the first Agricultural Real Estate company in Nigeria (and perhaps Africa). FarmKonnect (in partnership with Touchstone Snails Technology Limited) is building Africa’s biggest snail farm with an estimated output capacity of 2,600 Metric Tons of snail (Trade Volume of 10.4 Million Euros per annum) and 390,000 Litres of slime (Trade Volume of 31 Million Euros) per annum, putting Nigeria at the fore front in snail farming. 4. Similarly, in partnership with various Dutch and Indian companies, FarmKonnect is also building 2 Million square meters of low-tech, environment-friendly, fruit and leafy vegetable greenhouses in two regions of Nigeria. These will have an output of 240,000 Metric tons of vegetables per annum. Additionally, understanding the future need for protein has necessitated investments into insect farming, with focus on scorpion, cricket, locust, grasshopper, cockroaches, worms and black flea larvae. Furthermore, FarmKonnect is almost completing Nigeria’s first and only electronic 2 agricultural extension service center to remotely monitor any farm on African soil, using various modern agricultural surveillance and analytic technologies. In the coming years, FarmKonnect will be investing more in mushroom, algae ostriches and rabbits. 5. Oluwole is an agribusiness builder, energetic, passionate, and daring. He has grown FarmKonnect with nothing, from a 200-dollar hobby in 2016 to exceeding its One Million Dollar Mark within one year, even before the official launch of the Company’s operations. Oluwole is a perpetual opportunity creator, and strives to create opportunities for investors in the agricultural industry. In 2020, FarmKonnect will be inaugurating its first Agricultural Real Estate in Wasimi, Tagged, and The WaVe City, which will create about 1,000 jobs, and contribute over 120,000 tons of nutritious vegetables to Nigerian Market on completion in 2023. The inauguration of Igbeja Snail Village will also happen in 2020 with a 7,000 square meter snail breeding facility, towards the final operating size of over 100,000 square meters of snail breeding capacity. This project will create minimum of 1,000 jobs and put Nigeria as one of the top producers and exporters of snails. Finally, in Oyo State, the launch of the First Agricultural e-centre, located in Oyo State will help to enhance the production of farmers by helping with real-time farm surveillance, irrigation management, plant health management, precision farming solution and agricultural drone services. The Centre will also train farmers and youngsters on application of drones and sensors in agriculture. This is the first centre of such in Nigeria and it is located in Ibadan. The centre will be opened to public by August 2020. 6. Understanding the need to engage youths and youngsters in agriculture, Oluwole founded the Agricultural Social Entrepreneurship Foundation (ASEF), a not for profit organisation with a view to raising African youths to dominate Africa’s agriculture. The Foundation commenced its school agricultural club sensitisation and set up In Oyo State, introducing secondary school students to agriculture with the aim of raising potential farmers for the future generation 7. Azeez Oluwole Saheed is the founder and Chief Marketing Officer of.