Ambassador Dr Ikechi Agbugba is a food and agricultural economist with wide experiences in virtually every aspect of agriculture especially in marketing, agribusiness management, entrepreneurship development, food security, technology in agriculture, crop and livestock sciences, among other areas. He has twice consulted for the United Nations under the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Connecting Diaspora for Development Project focused on train-the-trainers programme spearheaded by the Hague Office in the Netherlands. He successfully delivered his assignments at the Food Crop Production Technology Transfer Station in Nigeria; and a Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), also in Nigeria. He has wide experiences as Honorary Associate Professor in the Food Safety Food Chain Security Programme, School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham (UOB), England; Casual Academic at York St John University England; Mentor on New Faces for Farming at Writtle University College Chelmsford Essex England; Visiting Professor at Rome Business School; Senior Lecturer at Rivers State University (RSU); Formerly Researcher and Development Officer with the Reform Corporation International (RCI) London, Adjunct Professor, Agribusiness Management Programme, Cavalla International University (CIU), among others. Since 2003, he has been carrying-out research on food and agricultural economics, agribusiness, food systems studies and development studies. He earned PhD in Agribusiness, Food and agricultural marketing; and gained Postdoctoral Research Experience on a Smallholder Development on a collaborative study between Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and University of Fort Hare, as well as a NUFFIC Project which three South African Universities (Limpopo, Venda and Fort Hare Universities) benefitted. He is also an external examiner with Development Studies Department, University of Fort Hare and has been examining PhD students since 2018. Interestingly, he recently received awards as Global Mentor of Change and Global Emerging Leaders’ Award 2022 from the Global Council for the Promotion of International Trade (GCPIT), which was featured in the State News from the Prime Minister of the State of the African Diaspora (SOAD). Dr Ikechi is a licensed roving ambassador and member of the royal chamber under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister of the SOAD. He also reports to the Honourable Ambassador to the African Diaspora Collective (ADC-USA) as Director, Innovation/Research and Development. He engages with international networking volunteer organizations across Africa, Europe, Asia, North America and other regions of the world as either senior advisor or director. As an active advocate member of the European Technology Chamber (EUTECH), he participates in different workstreams as either expert, consultant or speaker. He was nominated as Board Member of the Food, Farming and Fisheries Alliance Committee by EUTECH focusing on possible and easy solutions how to deploy business ideas, as well as relevant technology solutions to targeted African communities, developing interregional technology cooperation between Europe and Africa. According to Prof Ikechi, “moves to industrialize the agriculture sector must be vastly encouraged especially in this era of advent of technology and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). More so, we work with a good number of universities to see how to encourage farmers in building their capacity in the knowledge of technology and agriculture; and of course, robotics is one of them.” To mention a few, he is a co-founder and Senior Advisor of the Africa Organisation of Technology in Agriculture (AOTA) and Africa Agriculture Agenda (AAA). Together with the AOTA and University of Rwanda, they delivered their first annual event 2 captioned International Conference on Business Models in Agriculture (IBMA) at the Kigali Convention Center in March 2023 with focus on new and recent business trends and opportunities for smallholder farmers and food and agriculture/agribusiness value-chain enablers. He is also an AGRIVI Consultant. Dr Ikechi features as Board Member at African Council for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship (ACOSBE) and Uganda National Entrepreneurship Development Institute (UNEDI). He is also an Advisory Board Member with the African Continental Chamber for Commerce and Industry (ACCCI); Director, Research & Development/International Coordinator for Africa Agriculture Agenda (AAA); Senior Advisor with Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) programme for Capacity Development (GODAN-P4CD), Nairobi Kenya; Senior Advisor, African Youth Diaspora Organization (AYDO); Senior Advisor, AgriEn (an agribusiness and agri energy initiative focused on accelerating development and delivery of innovative and sustainable interventions in food security, among other initiatives. Also, Dr. Ikechi is the Technical Adviser to NutriCare, Malawi (an initiative developing strong farmers’ links and networks with the agriculture sector in specific regions thereby identifying farmer/farming needs, as well as building networks, partnerships and relevant opportunities in line with the vision of actualizing food and nutrition secure communities through empowering women to increase availability of affordable nutritious foods. He has also gained experienced as Professor of Agribusiness Management at Cavalla International University of America. It is important to note that Dr. Ikechi is the originator and advocator of the ‘’Brain Re-Engineering Concept and Reimagination: Strategy for Entrepreneurship Development and Youth Engagement in Agriculture.’’ Currently, he is working assiduously on developing some strategic notes for conflict resolution, disaster management, climate change mitigation, health care management, early career academics, among other issues. He is a selected academia/researcher stakeholder in the Feed-the Future initiative of the USAID Global Food Security Strategy Whole-System Workshop and has led plenary sessions on Food Security and Agribusiness especially at International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) World Congress which held at St Paul Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Dr Ikechi facilitated the Rivers State Nigeria Chapter of the Michigan State University Research Workshop with World Bank, USAID, FAO and Worldfish on the impact of COVID-19 on farmers’ incomes and food systems in urban and rural communities of Nigeria. Moreover, Dr Ikechi is the recipient of the excellence award ‘Agro-Economist of the Year’ in the 2017 Conference of the Pan African Agricultural Journalists (PAAJ).

E-mail: iykeagbugba1@yahoo.co,nz

  i.k.agbugba@bham.ac.uk

  Ikechi.agbugba@ust.edu.ng

  i.agbugba@yorksj.ac.uk