Chibuike Emmanuel

Chibuike Emmanuel

Chibuike started farming catfish when he convinced a Cable TV network to allow him to use a fallow part of their tower farm for fish farming. It was a creative way to get around the high cost of real estate in the area. He started with one pond, quickly turned a profit and invested in more ponds. Then vegetable production was added to the mix, to grow fluted pumpkin that’s irrigated from the pond water. The farming capacity has now grown to hold up to 5 tons (5,000 kg) of catfish per production cycle. Chibuike has four part-time workers that help him with fish and vegetable production and fish processing. In 2014 he founded the Agriculture is Sexy Network to speak to young people and get them interested in ag careers. He is also setting up a 16 acre mixed cooperative farm to help them get started in farming. Most recently he started championing Peterscoin, a crowdfunding platform to aid smallholder farmers in raising finances as conventional institutions such as banks consider them high risk. He is also innovating on modular integrated vertical farming models which are low-cost and low-tech to help smallholder farmers maximize yield from minimal resources such as land.