Dr. Ikechi Agbugba is a profound food & agro economist with wide experiences in agriculture, economics of agriculture, project management, entrepreneurship development, food security, technology in agriculture, crops, and livestock sciences, among other areas. He has intense experience in developing project proposals and has also been part of the EU Horizon Funding, NUFFIC, ARC and WRC among other opportunities aligning with the SDGs agenda of the United Nations. Dr Ikechi 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; and a Horticulture Research Institute (NIHORT), both in Nigeria.
He has garnered wide experiences and affiliations in the academia and research domains as Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, England; Lecturer at York St John University England; Faculty Member at School of Pan African Thought, London; Adjunct Graduate Faculty at Tennessee State University (TSU); Mentor on New Faces for Farming at Writtle University College, Chelmsford, England; Visiting Professor at Rome Business School (RBSN); Honorary Adjunct Professor at Lovely Professional University (LPU); Senior Lecturer at Rivers State University (RSU), among others. Since 2003, he has been carrying-out research on food and agricultural economics, agribusiness, food systems studies and development studies.
These are besides certificates in foreign languages, management, and leadership, from Harvard, Oxford and Wharton Universities, among others.
He earned PhD in Agricultural Economics and gained Postdoctoral Research Experience on a Smallholder Development Project on a collaborative study between Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and University of Fort Hare South Africa, 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 the Development Studies Department, University of Fort Hare and has been examining PhD students since 2018. He has published over 70 research papers in reputable journals and is currently serving as Chief Sustainability Officer of Mpowa and Heroes Academy Project in the United Kingdom. He also reports to the Honourable Ambassador to the African Diaspora Collective, North and South America (ADC-NSA) as Director, Innovation/Research and Development; 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 EUTECH advocate & Board Member, Food, Farming & Fisheries Alliance of the EUTECH, he participates in different workstreams as either expert, consultant, or speaker. In addition, he partners with agribusiness companies and establishments across Europe, Africa, Asia among other regions of the world in advising on efficient and 2 effective ways in proposing actionable business models for driving the needed transformation. He is the originator & advocator of the ‘’Brain Re-Engineering Concept and Reimagination (BRECR): Strategy for actualising the SDGs agenda of the UN. As a matter of fact, he is working assiduously on developing the versions for conflict transformation, disaster management, climate change mitigation, health care management, early career academics, among other issues. He has earned the following excellence awards: ‘Agro-Economist of the Year’ by the Pan African Agricultural Journalists (PAAJ, 2017), Global Emerging Leader Award (GELA, 2022); and Global Mentor of Change Award (GCPIT, 2022).
More so, he is a Co-founder of a Rwanda and Zambia based organisations which are Africa Organisation of Technology in Agriculture (AOTA) and AgriEn, respectively. Together with the AOTA and University of Rwanda, they delivered their first annual event 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. 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.”
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 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.
AMB (DR.) IKECHI AGBUGBA, PhD, FHEA, Advisory Board Member (Agribusiness), Caterandmerger Consult Ltd