Photos: Olagunju Funke Iyabo LAUTECH Professor Making Waves In Africa

Prof. (Mrs) Olagunju Funke Iyabo is a lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, LAUTECH. She had her BSc, MSc and PhD in Agricultural Economics.

Beautiful Prof. Olagunju Iyabo, born in 1971, lectures and supervises research work of university students from B.Sc. to Ph.D. levels, with passion to address issues relating towards enhancement of the quality of life of the rural farmers through gender sensitive poverty alleviation strategies, improvement of post – harvest processing as well as conscious awareness of good record keeping, access to loan and exploration of factors affecting market access to improve economic status of the poor rural household, for self – sufficiency with consequence of reduction in poverty.

Her research largely focused on the area of Agricultural Finance using Agribusiness, Cooperatives and Marketing activities to address poverty problems of rural community through improved farm productivity for financial empowerment. This was accomplished through her research work in production economics, agribusiness and finance as well as environmental resource economics.

Prof. Olagunju is a post-Doctoral fellow of highly competitive and prestigious African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) in 2013 and had a fellow mentee in 2014.

The 45-year-old elegant lecturer is very passionate and concerned towards achieving self- sufficiency with consequence of reducing poverty among the smallholder farmers, especially women.

She had physically demonstrated and trained female farmers on adding value to harvested cassava which was turned to a sustainable improved income via good record keeping thereby combating poverty and food insecurity with potential enhancement in the livelihood of small holder farmers and their families at both rural and urban centers.

Prof Olagunju, has served as External Examiner for postgraduate studies at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, assessed senior lecturers for readership positions at Ekiti and Ebonyi states Universities.

Prof. Olagunju is a registered member of African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya, , Nigerian Association of Agricultural Economist (NAAE,) and so on. She won a research grant of African Economic research Consortium in 2011 and won LAUTECH Tetfund research grant in 2015. She has software skills in STATA, SPSS, R-STUDIO, EXCEL and a bonafide member of both international and national professional bodies.

Prof. (Mrs) Olagunju is a team worker, working in a viable group and has produced a good number of academic studies and has imparted the skill to a number of graduate students. The quality, quantity and breath of her publications exemplified the synergistic benefit of collaborative research in agricultural economics and such efforts were responsible for her multiple scientific papers. The wide scope of her publications is a convincing evidence of a fertile and imaginative mind. Most of her works have appeared in print in reputable local and international outlets. Consequently, her ideas have been disseminated to the scientific community, especially her peers in and outside the country.

In addition to her scholarly publications, she has supervised and taught many courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is presently involved in supervision and teaching of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. She is very committed and responsible to carry out assignments given to her and have respect for time and dates in delivering them.

She won an international grant from African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), an NFP Short Course fellowship held at Wageningen University and competitively won a career-changing two-year African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) for her Post- doctoral Fellowship, as a result of her outstanding research for rural communities.

She belongs to several committees within and outside the university such as the Business Manager of International Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (IJAERD), member of Faculty of Farm Management and Internship committee, former chairperson of Internship committee and presently representing the dean of the faculty at the Board of Pre-Degree Science Program, LAUTECH.

The elegant female Lautech female Professor hails from Ijebu Isiwo, Ijebu Ode local government, Ogun State.

Prof. Olagunju Funke Iyabo is happily married to Prince A.B.C Olagunju who hails from Otan Ayegbaju , Boluwaduro local government in Osun state.