Elijah Adegun's work in food systems started in the field, on watermelon farms in Nassarawa, through market corridors across West Africa. An ag-tech platform was built because the extension system wasn't reaching the farmers who needed it.
The gap was real: most smallholders in Nigeria had little to no access to timely, localised agronomic advice, and the system meant to provide it was stretched thin or absent entirely. The throughline is consistent. Start with the people the system is supposed to serve, and build from there.
In 2019, I co-founded Rural Farmers Hub, an ag-tech platform delivering precision agriculture data and e-extension services to smallholder farmers.
What started as a response to a single farmer's frustration grew to tens of thousands of users across Nigeria. The approach was simple: spend time in the field, understand what farmers actually need, then build it.
Two Master's degrees - in South Korea and the UK - gave me the theoretical tools to understand what I'd been seeing in the field. Now at Heriot-Watt, my PhD focuses on inclusive urban agriculture models.
The question hasn't changed since that day in Nassarawa. It's just finally getting the time and resources it deserves.
The mission stays the same: building food systems that serve the communities that depend on them. That means moving past extractive research toward genuine community co-design.
Whether through research, policy, or on-the-ground work - the goal is a food system where the people most affected have a real say in how it's built.
Elijah Adegun is a food systems researcher and Co-founder of Rural Farmers Hub, an ag-tech platform delivering e-extension services to smallholder farmers using precision agriculture data. His work sits at the intersection of grassroots impact, academic research, and policy influence.
Over the years, he has built a practice rooted in a simple belief: food systems should serve the communities that depend on them. That belief has taken him from watermelon farms in Nassarawa to the podium at the Africa Food Systems Forum, from trade corridor work across West Africa to a fully funded PhD at Heriot-Watt University.
With experience spanning ag-tech, market systems, policy advisory, and academic research, Elijah brings a perspective that combines real-world building with rigorous analysis. His PhD research focuses on inclusive urban agriculture models using systems innovation methodology and participatory design.
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