oluwayemisi Oluwole

My mum has been running a roadside food business for 8 years, consistently delivering delicious & affordable meals. However, there has been limitations in growth due to lack of funds for proper space & equipment. With this support, the business will grow into a structured brand.

Why Nigerian parents don’t respect farming as a career I once told someone’s mum I work in agriculture. She smiled the kind of smile you give a child that said “I want to be Spiderman.” Then she asked, very softly: “So… what do you really do?” That was the moment I knew farming in Nigeria has a branding problem. Because in her head, “agriculture” = her village uncle who still uses cutlass and prays for rain like it’s a business strategy. And to be fair… can you blame her? Most Nigerian parents didn’t grow up seeing farmers as “successful people.” They saw: – people struggling with poor roads – crops dying halfway – middlemen pricing their sweat like pure water So when you say: “I want to be a farmer” What they hear is: “I have chosen suffering.” They didn’t send you to school so you can come back and start pricing tomatoes in mud. They want: Doctor. Lawyer. Banker. Anything that comes with AC and a swivel chair. Not “let me go and check my maize.” And the painful part? Even the educated ones still think farming is “fallback work.” Plan B. Something you do when life humbles you. That’s why a graduate managing 200 hectares is still less respected than someone managing Excel sheets in an office. But here’s the irony nobody talks about: The same parents who don’t respect farming… will complain every single day about food prices. Rice is expensive. Tomato is expensive. Everything is expensive. Yet the people producing the food? Still seen as the bottom of the ladder. Nigeria wants food security, but doesn’t want to respect the people who secure the food. And young people see this. They see how farmers are treated. They see how policies ignore them. They see how one bad road can wipe out profit. So they run. Not because agriculture isn’t profitable… …but because respect is part of the salary. Until farming looks like a life you can be proud of, not just a life you survive, Nigerian parents will keep asking: “So… what do you really do?”

Corporate organization is funny. one minute you’re just doing your job, next thing they’ve put you to cover a manager now you’re supervising people old enough to be your aunties and uncles. You’ll ask someone to do something and your conscience will be disturbing you like you’re being disrespectful because they’re older,this life no balance at all.

Lagos, the way it is now with no trees and fresh air, is not designed for younger folks to have longer life. Older men enjoyed the trees, ambience etc. and cut everything down for money.

Deeply honored to be recognized in Barcelona, Spain, as the first African to receive the Lideramos Youth Award for Social Impact. I used the moment to share one of my favorite stories of the little hummingbird against the great forest fire.

I’ve got one of the most important meetings of my life in about an hour, wish me luck!