Akinwumi Moses Omotayo is a Professor of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development with a professional career spanning over a period of twenty years. A considerable proportion of this period of his career was devoted to research, teaching and designing process-oriented interventions in the agriculture sector of the Nigerian economy.
Professor Omotayo started his academic career at the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. He later moved to the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta where he served as Head, Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development and later as Director of the Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre (AMREC). He served as the Director of the Consultancy Services Unit, (UNAAB CONSULT LTD) between September 2009 and December 2011. Between January 2011 and March 2013,Professor Omotayo served as the pioneer Dean (on sabbatical leave), of the Faculty of Agriculture, Federal University Oye-Ekiti. He returned to the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta where he is currently the Director, Institute of Food Security, Environmental Resources and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR).
In these positions he provided outstanding academic leadership and development of training/capacity strengthening schemes, formulating instruments of networking and partnerships among stakeholder organizations, employing proactive and strategic fund raising mechanisms to support implementation of programmes of the institutions and centres.
Professor Omotayo served as a member of the Presidential Committee on Development of Successor Generation of Farmers in Nigeria between April and August 2006, representing the Vice Chancellor Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. Between February 2008 and March 2009, he served as Commissioner in the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ekiti State. He designed and introduced the Millennium Farmers Project which is essentially premised on mobilizing youths/Farmer Organizations as pivot for securing the interest of young people in farming.
Professor Omotayo has had a rich and diverse research experience both at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta. He won several international research grants. These include grants from the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), the Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom, PropCom/DFID, and the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Market Place project among many others. Some of these research grants afforded him the opportunity to develop mechanisms for mobilizing and empowering Farmers Organizations through direct informal education, leadership development, mentoring and promoting self-actualization of individuals within these farmers’ organizations through learning by doing. Among the beneficiaries of these interventions are Settled Fulani Pastoralists in south western Nigeria and a host of women and young Farmers Organizations.
At the International level, apart from his school days at Virginia State University, Petersburg, Virginia USA, he studied Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing at the Natural Resources Institute, (NRI) University of Greenwich, United Kingdom. He also attended a short course on Development of Organic Agriculture Certification and Trade in Africa, sponsored by the United States Agency for |international Development (USAID), facilitated by Washington State University, Pullman Washington, USA. He has also served as a consultant to many international organizations and agencies such as the World Bank, Food and Agricultural organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Southern Africa Regional Forum for Higher Agricultural Education (RUFORUM).
Professor Omotayo was a Visiting Fellow at the African Studies Centre Leiden, the Netherlands between April and July, 2002. Between August and December 2009, he served as a member of a panel of experts collaborating with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the review of the Agricultural Strategy Plan for Nigeria. Recently he served on the committee reviewing the National Seed Policy.
