Introduction
Toyin Ajibade, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Ilorin Nigeria, holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics. Toyin had about eight years of cognate banking experience before venturing into academia. An International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) research fellow, her doctoral research was on Price Discovery and Volatility of Selected Food Crop Markets in Nigeria. Toyin’s career goal is to be at the forefront of agricultural trade, markets, and industrial organization agenda towards regional trade integration and agricultural value chain development in Africa.
Toyin is an advocate for agricultural value chain development and has been actively involved with curriculum development, training of value chain actors, and financial institutions such as to build formidable value chains across various crops in Nigeria. Toyin has conducted agribusiness and agricultural finance training of financial institutions for various organizations including commercial banks, AFOS Foundation for Entrepreneurial Development Cooperation (African Trust Funds Entrepreneurial Development, and impact investors, among others.
Toyin has been engaging with stakeholders across various levels of involvement including research institutions, funding organizations, insurance institutions, donor agencies, the private sector, and the Government. Toyin is currently involved with the NICOP component of the West Africa Competitiveness Project in developing and adapting financial literacy manuals and training toolkits for Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) German Development Cooperation which is co-financed by the European Union for Farmers in selected food value chains and MSMEs in the leather and garment sectors in Nigeria.
Toyin is a co-Principal Investigator on Feed-The-Future Legume Systems Innovation Lab-funded projects targeted at Promoting Trade Integration in Africa Regional Legume Markets through mobile technology app which is being developed for the legume traders and farmers in West Africa region. Toyin has been a consultant for International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Nigeria and Mali where she has carried out various researches in the millet and sorghum value chains.
Toyin is a climate-change enthusiast who looks forward to doing more multidisciplinary researches that will be addressing climate change challenges, bearing in mind the threats this poses to food production and food security in an interconnected world.
Expert
I hold a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ilorin and have about 6 years of teaching and research experience in the university. Prior to joining the academia, I have had about eight years experience in the finance sector with a particular focus on agricultural financing. My field of specialization is agricultural trade, markets, and industrial organization. As an Agricultural Development Economist, I have researched extensively on Agricultural value chain development and I have been actively involved with curriculum development and training. I have very strong knowledge of markets across Nigeria and my research have mostly been on agricultural markets and food prices with view of addressing inequalities, economic inefficiencies, and shortages in the agri-food systems.
Fields of expertise: Agriculture and rural development, Economic policy / inclusive economic development, Financing for inclusive development