409 Olusola Sowemimo - How a Nigerian lawyer built a profitable organic farm with standards, data and community

We sit down with Olusola Sowemimo, a lawyer-turned-farmer and founder of Ope Farms in Nigeria, to unpack how grief became a blueprint for organic, traceable, and profitable agriculture. Her catalyst was a cancer conference in California where survivors only ate what they could trace—an idea that reshaped how she thinks about soil, inputs, and integrity. Back home, the early days were rough: antibiotic-laced manure wiped out hundreds of tomato plants, a strong tobacco extract burned cucumbers, and buyers were nowhere in sight. What changed? Relentless record keeping, strict organic standards, and smart design—corner plots with buffer zones, on-farm worker housing, and a refusal to cut down trees.

Olusola details how rabbits and carefully managed poultry helped her close nutrient loops, why fruit trees are the most underrated cash-flow asset for new organic farms, and how processing gluts into shelf-stable products saved revenue. She shares the playbook for market fit—from salad staples to premium greens like kale—and the power of traceability in winning home deliveries, retail partners, and even international lab validations for turmeric and ginger. We also explore the human side: training that prevents avoidable mistakes, social media that tells an honest story, and the mindset shift needed to move beyond "organic is impossible".

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Transcript

Why Her Mother’s Death Sparked A Farm

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're going to hear Brian, the organic guy, our co-host, interviewing Olusola about her mother's death from colon cancer, led her to start a thriving organic farm in Nigeria. And the importance of record keeping, standards, training, and social media to scale region organic throughout Africa. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food Podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities, and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. This episode is part of the Regenerative African series, where we interview leading regenerative agroecological entrepreneurs across East Africa. It's a special collaboration with the Organic Guy podcast and supported by Rutico, a regenerative venture studio rooted in East Africa.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Hello, what's up, everybody? I'm your host, the Organic Guy. Today I want us to have a conversation on how organic and regenerative farmers can actually earn a living. And to have this conversation, we are going to go all the way to Nigeria, where I'll be joined by Ulusula Solomimo, who is a distinguished organic leader and founder of OpenFarms and recently TEDx speaker. She has trained hundreds of farmers. Of course, now she's growing a thriving organic farm. And through her social media, she is really inspiring thousands of people to take up organic farming. So in this episode, I just want us to go through her journey, how she got into organic farming, get to discuss her ideas or her vision of what regenerative agriculture looks like across the African continent. And yeah, she'd get to share some of the lessons she's learned along the way. So super excited to have Lucilla on the podcast. And uh welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Thank you very much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. As I mentioned, you are a trailblazer when it comes to organic farming. You're doing an amazing work in terms of also sharing some of the knowledge that you've gained through the seasons. So I'm looking forward to getting your ideas on that area. But guys, a little bit of uh context and uh how you got yourself into organic farming.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

My mom grew some of the food we ate at home at the back of the house. And apart from that, I noticed that every time we traveled to my dad's hometown to visit his parents. My mom was always particular about bringing food from there. She always told us how it was fresher, more nutritious, and all of that. And my granddad was actually a farmer. So anytime we were there, she came loaded back to Lagos with so much food. And I then realized that there was something unique about the things she was growing as well as what my grandfather was growing. But the reason why I actually went into organic farming was because my mom died at the age of 72. She had cancer of the colon. And of course, you know how they say most illnesses start from the gut. And I started wondering, I wanted to know for someone who ate so healthy, even grew some of her food at home, what could she have done wrong? And that was how I came across a conference advertised as the Cancer Control Conference in California. By the time I saw the unsolicited email, I was in New York. And when I told my sister-in-law that I was going to California, she thought something was wrong with me, that it's so far away. You're going to spend so much money. I said, I think my going there would give me a closure on the loss of my mom because it was something that we all had to grapple with. So I went for that conference, and that conference was my game changer. We were probably over a thousand. And my shock was that about 90% of the people there were cancer survivors. I'm like, the same cancer that people die of it just every day in Nigeria. Now I'm in a place where it's full of survivors. It wasn't the time of these big phones, so I ran out and got myself a small recorder. I started recording people and their experiences. Of course, some of them also spoke on stage. I remember the 18-year-old boy who ran away from home because he didn't want chemotherapy,

Cancer Conference And Traceable Food

SPEAKER_02 4:41

and the parents were looking for him, but he knew if they found him, they would put him through chemotherapy. He didn't come back home until he knew that the cancer was under control. There was another lady who talked about how she had cancer twice. And after the first time, she got careless and went back to her normal lifestyle. He came back. That second time, she vowed that nothing would make her lose control again. By the time she was telling me this story, she was under 40. Cancer twice at under 40. So I just started recording all of them, hearing their stories. But my greatest shock was at lunchtime because we had fun. When you go for conferences, a group of you will just find yourselves stuck together. Yes. So when we went to lunch, I then realized that I was the only one who went to buy lunch. Every other person had come with pretty cold bags. Their foods were there. And I thought, but this company promised us that we're going to have organic food. So why are you people bringing your food? And they each gave me the same answer. They do not eat food that they don't know where it comes from. Traceability is key. They've all had cancer before, and they are not going to get careless to a point where cancer will come back. That was a light bulb moment. And I said, What is this organic food? And everybody gave their own explanation. But I knew at that point in time that I was going to try the same in Nigeria. I came back to Nigeria and everybody I told will shake their head at me. You're going to lose money. They were right, I lost money. Like I said in my TED talk, I lost money. I didn't have anybody who was, who could guide me until much later on. And so I told myself that if I would not succeed at it, then I wouldn't even do farming at all. Because I cannot afford to feed people with food that has so much chemical in it. I wouldn't eat it. If I wouldn't eat it, why would I sell it to other people? But thank goodness, after the very many failures and all, we started getting a hang of it. And one of the things that really helps me was keeping my processes. So everything we did, we recorded it. And you know what data does? You start seeing patterns, and then we started limiting ourselves, learning, and then we also decided that we were going to stick with the things that we were now overcoming. And then later on, bit by bit, we'll add new things. And so that was how Oper Farm came into being. I also didn't have customers at first. I started with the beginning. No, I started with the end. No, I didn't start with the end. I started with the beginning instead of looking at the end, which is who will buy it. After we scaled our huddle, we found buyers. And these buyers even insisted that they would rather we supply to their homes, which was great. And that was how we started supplying them in their homes. But today we do go to farmers' markets and we have our own little store. And the awareness has deepened because I've never kept quiet about it. I keep talking about it. I encourage other farmers, even if you're doing the conventional, why don't you give it a try? Even if it's a little plot, try something. Because at the end of the day, when the body is sick, everything else is wrong.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Definitely. Because if you're sick, then that means you can't work or you can't even take care of your family members, or everything literally starts by yeah, how healthy or how good you feel. So that makes complete sense. And I'm not sure if most people know this, but you're also a lawyer. So you're still practicing or are you just doing it on the side?

SPEAKER_02 9:03

There are people who tell me things like, you need to bring out your certificate for me to believe that you are a lawyer. One thing I always tell people once you're a lawyer, you're a lawyer forever. Because even the way I think, I know that in the villages, if I in the villages around where I farm, they tell people that I'm even a judge. So you are doubting if I'm a lawyer. Believe you, the farmers in my area think I'm a judge. Yes, I'm still a lawyer. And I enjoy law. I enjoy law. I love the fact that critical thinking is one of the bedrocks of being a lawyer. And I love the fact that tasks me, it gives my brain something to do all the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah, which is quite interesting as well. And it gives you a fresh eye into when you move into the farming and the organic business world, which makes it quite unique on what you're doing. So you've you've been inspired by this conference. You say, you know what, I'm gonna go back, I'm going to start a farm. Just paint a picture for us in those early days. What was happening at that time and what were some of the biggest hurdles that you had to go through?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

I am deeply grateful to two people because I couldn't find organic farmers. At least not the educated ones. But the locals, most of them had moved to conventional farming

Early Failures And Keeping Records

SPEAKER_02 10:30

because those who market chemicals would actually visit the villages, educate them, and tell them why they need to use those chemicals, how it is good for them, how their crops will do more, and all of that. So when I bought the farmland and realized that I was going to be the only organic farmer, maybe 50 kilometers or 100 kilometers radius of the place, I decided that they needed to know what I was going to do or I was already doing. So I just casually mentioned to one of my mentors, and he said, Oh, there is actually a group in your state, and one of the things they do is to promote organic agriculture. It's called CoapTin. And they were happy. They were happy to support me. So I went to the head, the village head, and I explained to him what I wanted to do. I also told him that I already had an association that was going to foot the bill because some of those farmers, they live so far in that for you to get them to come out, there has to be a good purpose for it. So they paid them the transport, they bought food, they got chairs, canopies, and we had that session where I explained to them what I was going to be doing, what I was already doing, actually. And they were quite surprised because right at that meeting, there were about four popular farmers who could not attend. Why? Because they were already battling with the consequences of using chemicals. There was a particular one, every time he carried his knapsack. You know, the knapsack has a level where you're supposed to stop. But because he didn't want to be going back and forth, he would fill it up right to the brim. And every time he moved, the liquid filled with chemicals was draining on his back. So he already had a kind of allergy and a huge sore right at his back. There was another one, he had a problem with his two legs. I didn't know the repercussion of using chemicals could be that powerful. That's the word I would say. I don't want to say something derogatory, but his bones had started being affected and he could no longer walk without a stick. He just felt that something was wrong with his two legs. The story continued. There were about four of them like that. So by the time I was talking, quite a number of them were nodding. They were excited and nodding their heads. They wanted to know more. Now, this association, because they so encourage organic farming, they also had a session where they taught them how they could use the leaves of me. And they just told them the simple things around them that they could also use. There was so much excitement. But that was where it started and ended. I definitely didn't have the muzzle to give them the input at that time, though I told them that they could always come to me to learn and we could make it together. At that time, I wasn't buying any of the pesticides, the biopesticides. We were making them because we needed to conserve money. And there was also this belief that organic food is expensive. So I was trying very hard to utilize things within my reach so that the end product will not be too costly. And that was how we started. Up until now, they still talk about me. I have nicknames, I have nicknames everywhere. But one thing I'm happy about is the fact that they know that I have never relented. There was a day one of their top leaders came to visit, and there was a particular plant. It was all over the farm, the farmland. I didn't know much about it. And he said, Oh, wow, you have this. For you to have this means a lot. It means that the kind of farming you're doing is actually good because we don't see it anymore. And he begged me and asked if he could harvest some to take home. Do you know that from the farm, he called his wife and said, I'm bringing you a very special vegetable, something we rarely see. We don't see it anymore. Guess what? I'm in up farms, and it's just all over here. And I allowed him to take as much of it as he could. So it's been a very interesting one. We were also discovered by DC and France 24. That was also another game changer for us. I just received a phone call and the lady said, Are you Oper Farms? And I said, Yes. She said, Would I visit your farm tomorrow? I was like, Some are. But initially, I wasn't sure she was truthful. I thought, where would BBC find me and call me? Things had not become so open as now. So initially I thought maybe it wasn't really true, maybe a kind of scam. But then her English was on point. Her spoken English was on point. And I thought, you know what? The person who will scam you probably doesn't have this kind of loquest. So I told her that I didn't plan. No, I yes, I had planned to go to the farm the next day. So I told her it was fine. She could come. And she was shocked. She said she went online and picked about 12 names of farms that said they were organic. And the minute she starts to say she would like to visit, their tunes change, and they will say things

Building Community And Local Training

SPEAKER_02 16:40

like, Oh, I didn't plan to go to the farm. Oh, I won't be with you. And that she knew that it was very rare at that time to have a media house like BBC come to say they want to visit, and you tell them that they are not available. So she said, I was the first and only person at that time, of course, things have changed now, who said she should she could come. Interestingly, because of the state of the country, she was the videographer, she was the editor, she was the everything because she was a black lady. So I picked her up on the way. She also didn't want to ride in a different car so that she doesn't stand out. And that was how she went to the farm with me. And she was just amazed. There was something she did that I found really interesting. When we're finished, we had, I think we all said some corn and gave her water and things like that. And we just sat down chilling. The next thing I realized was that her very powerful camera had been left on. I said, Oh, you left your camera on. You would not imagine the reply she gave me. She said, I'm recording the butterflies. Like, really? Why would you be doing that? She said, Where on earth do you still see things like this, if not on an organic farm? So those little things just amplify the message for me to know that you are on the right path.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, and I guess it's even more powerful when you see people getting inspired by the work that you've done and the work that you're doing. That also inspires people, even who are going to watch or like people who will come in contact. That's always powerful. So obviously, you cannot paint like the old picture of the farm for someone to truly understand. They have to visit themselves. But just give a little bit of an overview like what does the farm look like? What are you growing? Just for people to get a grasp of how Operm looks like.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Okay, one of the things that guided me was that I realized that there were actually organic standards. And when I read through, I realized that I needed a buffer zone between me and the next farm. So I decided that whatever farmland I bought had to be a cornerpiece so that there will be the road and the farm. And then there will be another road and the farm. So every time I went to look for land, if it wasn't that kind of location, I wasn't going to buy it. Then we found this particular one. It's actually on the it's a bit on the top of a hill because you actually have to drive up like that to get there. And when I got there, there was just this peace in my heart. As soon as I saw it, even the agent who had been with me to several lands, he went quiet. And I think he went quiet because suddenly he, wow, maybe we found the one we're looking for. So when we got there, I looked in. Some of it had never been used before, some had been overfarmed. But the beauty of it was that it was a cornerpiece. So what we have right now is that the first one mile to the gate that we ended up constructing, when I started, we didn't have a gate. And the villagers would just walk through and wave at me. And my share was I didn't want smokers, I didn't want people who were coming from farms where they had used chemicals. And so one of the first things I rushed to do was to get in myself a gate. The day we put the gate, I actually danced because people didn't think the farm was a company or owned by a company. They still saw it as well, it's a farmland. But of course, the minute I did a bit of fencing and all, things changed. So the first one mile is still untouched. Unfortunately, the farmers around, they keep coming there to poach, to cut down trees. But my longing is that I would find either a body or an association, or if somebody who wants to finance the retention of that space. We don't farm there. We wanted to leave it. I wanted to leave it for posterity. I wanted something that in years to come, people will come in there and say, oh wow, we used to know this. So we have a gate. When you drive in through the gate, we left a buffer zone. Now the road to the farm is actually also part of the farm. When I came to buy the land, I realized that the foot, the what you the foot traffic had created a road that was actually meant to be part of the farm. But I learned a lesson from my late uncle. He said, you can't afford to come to a new place and make such a drastic change that people are likely to dislike you. Immediately. So I'm gonna beg you, I know you paid for this land, but please leave this road for the foot traffic to continue to travel. So the next, I think the next maybe 18 feet to 20 feet on the other side of the road is still part of the farm. So if you wanted to measure us on buffer zone, that was the most major buffer zone, and we have it. There is nothing that would really niche from the next farm that would get to us. Because right inside, we also left another buffer zone just to ensure that whatever was coming was stopped before they actually enter the farm. So what we've done is I think we have pineapple to the right hand side. There were some indigenous fruit trees that we met on the left-hand side, which we have left. They call it the monkey cola. For the first three years, I didn't know what this was. My workers knew they were harvesting it and eating it. And they never offered me until I took a photograph and went to ask. So we also have a farm residence in just a small bungalow. Because one of the things I learned is that the best thing to do is to house your workers. If you allow them to go to town, their minds, their brains get polluted. They hear all sorts, they still hear

Designing The Farm And Buffer Zones

SPEAKER_02 23:30

all sorts of nonsense, but at least they come home and say, Oh, we heard this, or if the villagers told us that, that kind of thing. So what we've done is we've just used, as there's a flow to it. We also have a little place on the side. After the pineapples, we have this huge expanse which you normally use for okra. And after that, you will then find a place where we use for our rabbits. The only reason why we started raising rabbits was because we needed their waste. The rabbit waste is one of the most lucrative in the sense that unlike the cow and the chicken, we don't have to wait. You can use it almost immediately. So that gave us some kind of peace of mind. Because along the line, one of my failures was when we went to take off, we went to obtake chicken waste from a farm. And the guy said the waste had been there for about six months. After all, three months is where they told us that you should cure the soil for the manure for. So we went, we picked it up. By the time we picked it up, it looked so beautiful. It was like your everyday compost. And we had used it to plant tomatoes. It was the first time we were doing 600 stands of tomatoes. We had started doing when you start to start doing maybe 100 and seeing what it was like. We had gotten so comfortable. We had now we did 600. We then applied this famous uh chicken waste. Within three days, we lost all the tomatoes. By the time we went to test the chicken waste, there was a very strong and powerful antibiotics. If I it was said at the time that particular antibiotic was meant for human beings, not chickens, but they had fed their chickens with it. And despite the fact that it had been there for between five and six months, that antibiotic was still so powerful in the waste that it killed all the bags of tomatoes for us. That was when we said, you know what? Let's have our own rabbit pen because we can then use the waste. We're using the waste, we're using both the pool and we're using both the urine also, which we were using both as fertilizer and pesticide. So there were many little occurrences like that. I wouldn't even call the, I can only call them little now. At that time, they were major. We had planted cucumbers, and when the cucumber beetles came, I was in panic. I started calling everybody who could share something, and one guy said, Oh, go get tobacco leaves and soak it in water, is a fantastic pesticide. Of course, no measure, and I didn't ask. We sent for it from up somewhere in the interland. It came, we made the solution, we sprayed the cucumbers, and we all went to bed feeling very happy and excited. We got there the next morning, everything was banked. It was tobacco. Later on, I learned that all I needed was very little. The mixture should have been something like maybe one, two, even 10 or 15. I think we probably had done, maybe we had done something like 50, 50, I don't know. But everything, and that was when I started realizing the power of nicotine. You would actually think somebody sets fire to it. Then we also decided to start raising our own chickens because at least that they will be ours and we will know what we had fed them, you know. So we set up our poultry, but we didn't get our first set of chickens until almost a year after, because I kept telling myself that I cannot be an organic farmer growing food organically, and then I'm raising chickens with chemicals. I won't even be able to use their wave. So that was how I then found one guy. I think I found him online, and somebody was like, Oh, you better be careful online, all these things you're doing online. What the guy came physically and he set up a farm poultry with the first 50 birds. So it's been an amazing journey. If you get there now, we've been able to divide the place. It was is mapped, is mapped. You can drive right into the farm, but we do not allow people to go beyond a certain level, a certain area because the car fumes and all of that. Organic is very sensitive. We just didn't want anything that would distort the equilibrium of the place. We don't allow smokers because anything can happen. We don't want any tool mosaic coming out because somebody brought nicotine or that kind of thing. But there's something that I would say about upper farms. Because we don't chop down trees anyhow. Every time I post a photo of upper farms on my status, people come back and ask, is this a farm? Some will think it's a sort of forest. Some will think it's a kind of place that you can always decide to turn into a resort. That will be fantastic. If it's ever turned into a resort, I think it will be marvelous because then you can have like farm to table right there on the farm. That would be really wonderful. But I think that will probably be after my generation.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Okay. Yeah, it's quite interesting how the whole journey has developed. And it's really interesting that some of these things you cannot actually plan for them. It's just some of the things that you get to learn. Is Ope the name of the place, or what does it mean?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

I've seen people even address me at conferences as Mrs. Ope. Showwemimo. But this is the story behind it. When we were looking for a name for the farm, this was my husband and I, and he gave me quite a number of names, and I'll just shake my head. Then he said, Why don't we? He said, Oh, you're always in gratitude mode. Why don't we call it Blessings Farm? I'm like, no. I'm in a village where people rarely speak English at that time. I didn't want a name that people will have to slaughter to pronounce. And that was how we decided on Ope. Because Ope is gratitude, Ope is blessing. And so it was the Yoruba version or Yoruba translation of the blessing that my husband had suggested. It is not my name. Coincidentally, our first daughter is it's part of her name, but she didn't even feature when we decided to use Operams. I had, I wanted a name that was shocked, easy to call, and the villagers will be able to call it. And I dare say that today, right from the very first entrance into that area, the local commercial riders just tell them you're going to operate farms. They take you right there. And I know that is because it's easy for them.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So you've taken us through

Hard Lessons With Manure And Biopesticides

SPEAKER_00 31:00

like the journey, you come back, you've established this. How long does it take for you to put a product into the market, or let's say you start selling your produce, or start seeing some sort of results from the work that you've been putting for years? And maybe for as a general advice or a rule that you might give for like new farmers who are going into organic, how long should they wait?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

How long should they wait? Let me start by saying that one of the things I recommend for anyone who wants to go into organic farming right now, if the land is yours, then start with fruit trees. This is probably one of the most expensive advice that I would give anybody. Please pay me thousands of dollars for this information. The reason is that fruits are always in demand, and there is the general mindset that fruits take a while. Guess what? When I started Oquel Farms, a man had introduced a particular crop to me, and he told me the crop would take the next eight to ten years before he started fruiting. And I said, Oh no, I can't wait. Guess what? I've been there 12 years. Imagine if I planted when he did, when he advised me, I would be smiling to the bank. So for anybody who wants to succeed in organic farming and you want to break even faster, start with your fruit trees. You could make them around the perimeter of the farm. You could actually allocate a particular area and make it your orchard. But one thing you're sure of is that after three years, you will be harvesting. There are so many juice companies who are looking for fruits. I've had people come up to me and tell me things like if you could plant pineapple for me, I would buy it. But you're talking of me buying suckers that will cost me probably about two million naira, and you don't want to put a dime down. It's not gonna work that way. So I would always tell people if you can find people to collaborate with so that you know that when the time comes, you already have off takers for what you're planting. Another thing is what does your market want? When I started, I didn't know what my market wanted. I just knew that I wanted to grow organic food. But luckily enough, in my research and in my conversations with people, they kept telling me things like if you could have the vegetables that make up vegetable salad. So that meant your cucumber, your carrot, your lettuce, your cabbage, you know, everything that could go into your salad plate. There is always a market for it. There was a time we were supplying about four companies, lettuce, in fact, lettuce and kale, then cucumbers were supplying them. In fact, one of the guys that we were supplying, he was supplying a top hotel on the island. He used to pay us in cash. So you take the vegetables there, he weighs it, and he pays you. You leave with them. He doesn't even give you a check. He gives you cash because he also had people who I think they pay him in cash for some other things, and he pays you in cash. So I would say give yourself about five years, depending on maybe the acreage of the land that you have, depending on your market, and then you need to know, I would call them maybe the premium. You often hear people refer to it as exotic vegetables. But if you can split the kind of things you do so that if you were doing, for instance, kale, there was a time we did kale so much that people didn't believe it was kale. I still have the photo. You would see at least it was more than a plot of land and we had buyers because people believe that kale is supposed to be very good for cancer, for so many other things. Another thing that would make one cross the Rubicon early enough is if you're going to processing, if you can process the things that you grow. So there was a time when we were inundated with kale, and somebody just said, could you dry the kale and then I can use it in my other products? And we started drying the kale. So when we started processing, it was out of desperate. It wasn't something that I thought this would be nice to have. No, it was because we started seeing our production started getting better. People usually have this mindset that, oh, with organic, you can't get much, you can't feed the world and all of those things. But one thing that I learned personally was the fact that the soil was beginning to respond to all the effort that we put into making it so rich. So, what I've discovered is that at the start, things might be slow, but the minute you get it right, your soil is going to be so rich that you'll be the best for it. Now, another thing that anybody going into organic farming can look into is that the world at large, at large, the world wants organic food. People are more interested in organic. I remember we met, a lady called me out of the blues just before COVID, and she said, if you can grow organic ginger for me, I'm gonna pay you 30% more than the market price. But then COVID came and we lost touch. So just think of the high-ticket product or produce that you can grow. So today, if I had something like kale, because it costs much more. And really, people might not know when you're growing things like curly kale, because it curls, it takes its time. Yes, and then there's some vegetables that are pretty cheap. You will know that whatever you do, you need to mix and match so that you can make your money in good time. So if I had to start all over again, I definitely will do many things differently.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah, and I think those are the things you get to learn that it in hindsight, you could have done them differently. But thank God you're here to share with us. So I'm wondering, like, from an Nigerian perspective, what would you say is the state of organic and regenerative farming in general? Are there more farmers who are getting into it? Are there more farmers interested in it?

SPEAKER_02 37:55

I know that I have people who I have mentored who

Rabbits, Poultry, And On-Farm Inputs

SPEAKER_02 38:00

now own their own organic farms and are doing very well. But the numbers are still very small. And for many reasons, the mindset is that organic is tough, organic is difficult, and people would act in fact there are people who don't believe that some of us are organic. There was a guy who said that on a platform. I took a screenshot of what he wrote. He said, Let them be lying to you. He said, Let them be lying to you. So I always tell people that you need a mindset shift. You just have to shift. There are too many things that are negative about organic to people who have never done it before. And some they did it and ran out of it because they didn't have the depth of knowledge that people like us had suffered to learn. Some people, the first time they lose something, like, oh no, I can't come and remain poor because I want to feed the world the food that is perfect for them, and they run off. So that is on one side. There are people who want to justify the chemicals that they keep feeding their own clients. So by that, they make themselves feel happy or they want to look good by telling people that it's a lie. Those people are lying. There was a time we had agro tourism to the farm, and the lady had told me she was coming with about maybe 25 or 27, just a little under 30 people. I was surprised when about three or four of them were my customers who had been buying my food. One of them confessed that every time she told her family that she's eating organic food, they'll come and let them be lying to you. Have you been to the farm before? How do you know it's true? Blah, blah, blah. So when she heard of that trip, she was one of the three of them who came. And when they were leaving, I said, How does this feel? She said, I'm at peace.

unknown 40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

I'm at peace. And that's not the first time we're going to have people who come into the farm and tell us there's something unique about being here. We've had two farm organic, international organic farm assessors who have visited our farm. Not because we wanted to take a certification, but because when they were visiting Nigeria, people told them, Oh, there's this lady who says she's doing organic. Please visit her farm and come back with feedback. The first one that came, I was there. The second one, I wasn't there. The first one that came, he sat down and I was wondering why he sat down. I said, Oh, I thought you were gonna go around to prove that he looked at me and smiled. He said, Ma'am, I'm on an organic farm and I know it. He said, I have visited probably maybe 200 to 300 farms. I know what I'm saying. Then he looked on the side and saw a tomeric and said, What are you doing with those? I said, Oh, we just put them there to dry a little, that we're gonna plant them again. He said, Oh, really? Can I take a sample? I said, Yes. He went to the car and he brought a particular bag. It looked like a zip lock. When he brought it, he turned it, you know, he saw that the product wouldn't touch his hand, and he used it and picked a piece of the turmeric, maybe a piece or two. And he just did the kind of lock that nothing could open that place unless you cut it. And I didn't think anything of it. I didn't think anything of it. Only about maybe four weeks after, I heard that that turmeric had passed the seven international standards.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yes. Then another one came, also curious, and said, Can I take the ginger? When he came, it was ginger that was on ground. I said, Can I take the ginger? I wasn't even there. I said, Oh, let him take it. He took it and they went to test it in the Netherlands, and that passed five international standards. Now, all of this is because I was following the standard laid down by NOAN. Noan is the organic association in Nigeria, and we have the standard. So that standard which they use to satisfy us as organic is all I was following. And the result has been massive. So I keep advocating, I keep telling people I know farmers who don't eat what they grow. There was a particular farmer when he fell ill, he just said, Go get in your farms, go get in our farms. And we were sending the stuff to him. The cost of shipping the things to him was probably almost double the cost of what he was buying. We said, Ma'am, don't worry. I'm just happy that I'm eating what you're growing. There was another gentleman, he lost his wife to cancer, and he now he brought in a specialist. When the guy came to Nigeria, the guy visited his farm and said the level of chemicals we're using was far too high. So the guy then asked to visit upper farms. Somehow, I don't know, he came and he told the gentleman, he said, This is the kind of food your wife should have been eaten. The guy for probably about two years after, he almost

Naming Ope Farms And Market Fit

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Went into depression because he kept feeling bad that what he was feeding his family was not healthy. And yet, I always tell people, your first doctor is a food you eat.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

So it's an organic farmer. Absolutely. And I think you just also confirm one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard that for you to become an organic farmer, you have to be organic yourself. So when you see someone come to your farm and feel at home, like yes, I'm in an organic farm, or like a farmer believes so much in your farm that they are very much willing to come to your farm to get the product, is because they see you, the way you carry yourself, the way you speak, the things that you do are organic. So by extension, the farm is obviously bound to be organic. So that is always very powerful. This question that my friend always likes to ask Kun, who is the host of uh investing regenerative agriculture and food podcast, he always asks so if you are in charge or if you are given like one billion US dollars for you to spend on anything in the regenerative and agriculture space, how would you spend that money?

SPEAKER_02 45:11

One billion dollars that would be a lot of money, and I would do a lot with it. One of the key things that I would want is to see organic packs everywhere. There will be plots allotted to just a grain of organic food, and it will be strictly regenerative farming. Those plots would have attached to them either people who will come to train the people. See, many people who had failed in organic never trained. They never trained, they're just happy to see the it didn't work. So we will start by establishing those plots. We would have the buy-in of villagers. The villagers used to practice what you could call organic, but they've lost it. The people now come in, they're like very easy to catch. All you need to do is tell them they can achieve this and they won't. So I would want those packs to have innovation in ways that the common land can appreciate. Things like drip irrigation tapes so that food can be around the clock, and we can say that food security will not shake. Foods that they themselves eat locally, they would educate us as to how best to plant it without those chemicals. Nigeria is very large. I think we have about 36 states and probably thousands of local governments. But if we make every local government to have one, we would have a drive where it is the youth that would drive it. Because they're the, if I always tell them that it's they're no longer the future, because the future is here. So we would make sure that it's the youth that drive it. If anybody needs to eat organic food, they always tell us at every conference we go, it's the children, the youth, the pregnant women. So we will be preparing for long time ahead of us, not a short-term thing. We will also encourage people to do a mindset shift when it comes to the kind of food they eat. So there's going to be a whole gamma of the nutrients in the food. So we're going to have nutritionists, we're going to have agreed extension officers who will be willing to train, we're going to have farmers who want to convert. Then we will have the buy-in of every location, would make sure that at least 50% of the people in that area are in it. Because when they are in it, it won't suffer. When we also find markets, and these markets can then go well beyond Nigeria, each area would have its own market, whether it's supplying a supermarket in Lagos or in Ibado or in Abuja, wherever you are based, the supermarkets there will work with us and they will become off-takers of what we produce. So that at the end of the day, the ecosystem, even apiary, because one of the things we've benefited is that when you have an organic, I remember once I went into a group and I was trying to encourage people to have apiaries. Of course, it was a consultant who made me realize that most of them couldn't do it because the chemicals that are used there will not help the bees, and the bees would always run away. So you can imagine if we have those packs, we would also have bees. Now, for bees, there will come a time when the honey will be the cheapest thing, because there are so many other things that you can get from beekeeping. You know what? To anybody listening, they might just feel there she is floating again. But these are things I know will work because I've done it on a smaller scale, and I know that if our hearts and mind are in it, those regenerative packs would work. All over the world, people already have packs where you can come, grow your food, take it home, because even your home doesn't have the space for you to create your own urban garden. So you can imagine if in every local government we have our own regenerative pack owned by us, land by us, and sold by us, that would be great.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Yeah, it will be awesome. And it's also like a powerful way to also show people. And I think when people see things, they relate to them better and they actually see okay,

Timelines, Orchards, And Processing

SPEAKER_00 50:00

this idea can actually work. So that way they can also go and get to try it themselves. So I think that's a powerful way of uh yeah, influencing a lot more people and even the communities just to buy in, not forcing them. So that's interesting. One thing I saw about you is that you also like training farmers. Why is that an important part of what you're trying to do?

SPEAKER_02 50:24

See, if you don't train them, you can blame them. Many people choose to be ignorant about things, but when they know that you can train them, there's always a shift. I have succeeded much more with those people who grow food in their homes. Now, one of my first light bulb moments was I started the farm, I started acquiring land in 2013, and by 2014, we're going through all our struggles. By 2015, I started seeing food. I was able to harvest food, sell, and make money from it. So I told myself, if I've been through this, other people should not go through this. So I advertised my very first training in 2015 when my confidence was, of course, much higher. I got a space for free. It's a junior sister of mine who will nursery school in Ikeja GRE. Her friend had said, don't worry, she'll give us for free. You don't have all that money to spend. So she gave us a space for free. We got 12 chairs because I thought, okay, if I don't have people, I probably will have about 10 people because I knew my sisters, my brothers. By the time I pulled to my cousins and all, I think we'll have about 12 of us. Guess what? We were 32. We had to go beg for the nursery chairs to add to the class. And I thought, you know, if people really do want to live healthy, because one of the things that I used to market it was the fact that if you come, we'll teach you how to grow your own food, and you would not be subjecting yourselves to the chemicals in the ones that you buy from the market. And that did it. Then we made it so natural. I brought in other speakers because I knew my strength. I brought in a lady who came to talk to them about green herbs. I brought a lady who came to teach them about grain tomatoes. There was a gentleman who came to talk to them about making them biopesticides. And when it was time to eat, we roasted corn and made the Zobo drink. People just felt wow. Everything was natural, was within their reach. Then we had different demonstrations outside how you can maybe how to dig a hole and put the seed in. This one would talk to them about seeds and what they could do. And even though I have continued to train, that training always has a special place in my heart because many of those who attended never forgot. Some of them still grow food at home. One of them went to an extent where she started growing lettuce, and from the lettuce, she was making sandwiches and supplying offices. And her selling point was that she grow the vegetable inside the sandwich. We've also had students because quite a number of the higher institutions do not train organic. So we started having students who would say, I don't want to leave the university and I'm like an illiterate. How can somebody ask me what's organic food and you don't know it? So we started having those. There was a particular set, I think they were 27, 27 of them. I was out of the country. I had to pack our workers out of their room and then made I'm like, this is against, no, ma'am, just leave us. We know how we'll manage ourselves. Don't worry about us. That was how they all stayed there. And I think they were with us for probably 11 days or so. While they were there, I got different people to come and teach them different things. So the snail farmer will come, the poultry will come, the beekeeper came. It was so robust. I still meet these that many of them are now very grown up, and they still tell me things like, you cannot believe the shift you made in my mindset. If I didn't come to open farms, I too will be telling people that it's not possible. So I have seen remarkable transformation in many people. We had people who would tell me, I don't even know if I'm going to set up an organic farm or not, but I know that I'm going to eat organic food because I can now teach the farmers around me so that they can produce for me. So training for me, then I myself, oh my goodness, I've lost count of how many training I've taken in my life. Up until now, I don't think there's any month since I started Opera Farms that I have not either attended a training online or physically or just do my own research. There is no week that I don't learn something new in the organic space because the world is changing, innovation is coming, and organic tool is embracing some of these things. So you can't sit and say, oh, this is what my grandfather did. You will just become irrelevant. And with AI here, we even want the AI of agriculture to train us. So that has been the journey. And I love I still love training and I still do train people.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Yeah, I think that's a very important way to put it. And it makes sense because you have such a wealth of information. So the fact that you are continue learning or you're like looking for new courses, you have this anger for knowledge reveals itself by the kind of knowledge that you keep sharing with us. So yeah, keep at it. We need more farmers. Thank you. Yeah, one thing I also noticed about you is that you're active on social media as well. So I think I meant I met your page on Instagram and then I followed you my way into LinkedIn as well. So you have a very heavy social media presence. How did you get into it?

SPEAKER_02 56:16

One of the things that triggered it for me is the fact that I worked in an organization that was totally tech. We didn't write letters or typed letters the old way. Everything that came from us. You sent memos by emails, you did everything. Even some of our meetings, you're meeting with people in London and you're connecting. I've forgotten the name they called it in those days. It's not like now where you're there and I'm here and we're just on WhatsApp. There was a particular name they gave it. That was a kind of office. We had e-learning. That is still one of my prayers. The Opera Farm website is currently down. But one of the things that I want to make sure that I do by Q1 next year is have a sort of LMS on Opera Farm website so that maybe you just pay a token and you have access to training. Yes, you want to learn. Now, this my

State Of Organic In Nigeria

SPEAKER_02 57:20

last place of work, they did it all for me. It wrapped it all for me because why on earth would I be in a place where the touch of the button have reached probably a hundred people outside Nigeria? Of course, when I first got there, it was I had to take a personal trainer. The office would train you, but I didn't want them to know how bad I was. So I did my own training at home so that when I started training with them, I didn't come looking like a very stupid, not even able to do much. But that really helped me. Now, the social media beat, I had started the farm with very little knowledge, and I wanted more people to know. And I felt, you know what? If I'm going through these experiences, it would be unfair for another person to go through the same. So one of the things I decided was to go on social media and start sharing my journey. So the day I'm happy with one harvest, I go mention it. The day I'm sad with one harvest, I go there and mention it. I didn't realize that people were following me. There was a time I remember, in fact, now for the past two years, my figures on Instagram have been the same. I don't know why, but it got to a point where sometimes I was signed, people, I was getting maybe like 100 followers, maybe per week. And deep down I'm like, what are they on to? What? The mere people now started giving me feedback. I started getting messages from people like, oh, I'm so glad you mentioned this. I would have made the same mistake, but thanks to you, I did it this way. Or someone will say, Oh, you know that thing that you showed us, that thing that you said you used, I tried it, it worked. Wow. I'm like, okay. So I was really on to something. And then at the other end were people who were just silently following me and watching. I remember the day I did a post, and one of our workers was spraying, he was using the womb sprayer. Is it has its own little engine? So where you're going around spraying, you're just going to spray the whole place. It's faster. And then a very big organization, I think from the US, then asked a question, and what might he be spraying? So wow, I wouldn't even have known that they were following me, not to talk of the fact that they were even now monitoring what exactly I was doing. So I'm glad that my being on social media has worked. I then started branching to other things. So when I started Operams on Instagram, it was to tell people my experiences, share with them. But people would always come. So this handvast, when you sell it, who buys it? Or is it not real? And then went to start another page where I said we can talk of money. But this particular one, I wanted it to be all about organic farming. Then people had a problem. When we're looking for you, we can't find you. Because I honestly don't see why I should go have a page and it's just mine. What do I want to talk about there? So now I then change it to Olu Shola Show and all of my farms. Don't be surprised if I wake up another time and change the name. But at least those looking for me find it easier to find me. But all I still do there is talk about farming, marketing, businesses, and the things that people can leverage on.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Yeah, and it's a powerful way, I think. In such a world, you are bound to have people who have similar interests as you do. And through that, they will connect to you or they relate to some of the challenges you're going through. Sorry, there was something I forgot to add.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

And I would tell any other person who wants to go into organic farming to learn from this. The disability that it brought me has been so massive, so powerful that sometimes I pinch myself and ask, this was not what I it wasn't what I signed up for. I didn't think I was doing something that would get me into the corridors of Nuremberg or take me to Switzerland and things like that. I suddenly realized that your authentic story will open doors for you. Just know how to tell it and curate it very well. I have the power of speech because I'm also a communication expert. So that has also helped me because I meet people who tell me everything. What I'm doing, what you're doing. I said, you know what? Don't look at yourself. Look at what the world will gain from what you share and just tell your story.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Yeah, that's a powerful way. And I think most people don't realize its impact or that they can actually sell their produce or just create an awareness of the brand that they're trying to do that through social media. So that's an avenue for farmers to use as well to put their awareness out there. Yeah, as I mentioned, when we were starting, we you had the opportunity to do a TEDx speak. So that is always a dream or yeah, something that a lot of people want to do. How was your experience of getting involved in TEDx?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Without me not wanting to sound immodest, I didn't plan for it. Even the guy who curated TEDx, if he hears this, he probably might not be shocked, but I'm saying it for the first time. It was one of my mentees who called me and said, Is there a reason why you've not had a TEDx talk? And I thought, no, there's no reason. I've just never given a thought to it. And she said, For you, I think you need a TEDx talk. You've been through so much. The world, the larger world needs to hear you. And she then said, There's a gentleman who is organizing one, but I think it's next week. Like, next week? She then said, There are people who use two years to practice for TEDx, but I know you. Those 10 days, they will be enough for you. Immediately,

Verifying Standards And Export Tests

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

she gave me the guy's number and I called him and he said, Do you have a topic? I lied and said yes. The reason why I lied was because if I said no, he would think I'm really crazy. How do you want to join a TEDx talk in 10 days' time and not have a topic? So I didn't want the guy to freak out. As my children will always say, Mom, don't freak out. So I didn't want him to freak out. I then ran to my LinkedIn post. I went to do a search for the one that had the highest impression. And the one that had the highest impression was where I told my story. In fact, now I can confess it, that story didn't actually start the way I started. I started by saying they called me stubborn, they called me weird. And that particular post on LinkedIn was also something like that. So when I saw the impression, I like, I'm gonna make this my talk. So that was how I started working on it. And I think this was a Friday. Then the guy says, We have rehearsals on Sunday. I'm like, this coming Sunday? He said, yes. Of course. Not having told him that I hadn't rehearsed, I couldn't tell him anything. But I then said, Sunday, I already had something to do on Sunday. He said, if you can't join us on Sunday, too bad. That's the only time we can take you. The whole of Saturday, I was busy somewhere. Then Sunday, about three hours before the first rehearsals, I started. By then, I had written out what I wanted to say. Today I'll cross this out, cross that out. So the first time I actually did my rehearsal was the first time I had the opportunity of trying it out. And they were all impressed, but I knew that I could do better. And one of the judges actually said he felt I could do better. And I knew he was right. Because if anybody knew me, they would suspect it too. So that was how within that was Sunday, then they said we're gonna do the talk on the next Wednesday. So I traveled to Abuja. And I tell people since I've been since I've done my TEDx talk, I've told as many people as will do it. Many of the things that you Overlook can make you a TEDx talker because it's all about the simple thing. And I tell people by the time you have a TEDx talk, it's not so much about you, it's about how you're gonna impact the world. So if you have that strong yearning to impact the world, you've got to do a TEDx talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Yeah, I think it's one of my things that is in the to-do list, but uh yeah, I think I will link the um the TEDx talk in the in this podcast so people can also watch for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Thank you. That would be nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Yeah, so as we finish here, we've gone through your journey, how you started, some of the problems you've gotten through, all the challenges, and yeah, some of the different achievements that you've had so far. So, as you look forward, what do you hope our food system looks like? Let's say 10, 20 years from now.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:48

I keep telling people that eating organic, practicing regenerating is a choice, and no one has the right to force another into it. But there is so much knowledge from research out there, which if you don't go to look for them, you would not know they exist. I remembered I the websites I visit very often. Once they are all about organic, I visited very often to learn, to see. And I'll never forget a particular one that I saw on, I think it was the Rodell Institute, where his research was carried out. And they realized that when organic agricultural or regenerative farming, sustainable farming, whatever we choose to call it, when they paid it more attention, fewer people went into hospitals. So the medicals, the medical bills were reducing and people were eating healthier. Now, if you're not a curious mind like me who is who gallops everywhere, in fact, sometimes I just sit down and put the word organic agriculture or sustainable farming or regenerate, I just put it in my search engine and I start reading things. If I didn't read that, people will probably still be arguing with me. Now, in Africa, we rare, we don't really have much data. So that is also a huge problem for us. I have customers, I have a lady who's told some of their feedbacks are mind-boggling. I had a lady who said when she met us she was just going to stage two of cancer. But since she changed her diet completely, there were days she said if the only thing she could get from us was cucumbers, then she probably will eat cucumbers for the next two days until she was tired. Because she knew something was pushing her. She didn't want the cancer to grow. Today, she has no traces of cancer. I had a relation who was cancer stage four. It was the day she collapsed that we all knew she had cancer. She had hidden that from everybody. The hospital where we rushed her to, a cancer hospital, had given her two weeks to leave. Two weeks. So when she came home, I said, no, I'm not gonna take this. I didn't even attend the meeting by the hospital. I said, let's try. I never give up on people, I never give up on anything. I then got one of the naturopaths who come to the farm. I have natural paths who come to the farm because the farm still has very unusual medicinal plants that are not out there. And I called one of them. I said, This lady, she's very special to me. What can we do? I don't want to fold my arms for two weeks and we wait for her to die. She lived another seven months. And by the time she passed away, she said, I'm just tired. It's not that you've not done enough. I'm just tired. We met her at

If Given $1B: Regenerative Parks

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

stage four, which they had given her two weeks. So for her, seven months with her children and her husband meant a lot to her. And this is the reason why I would say that whatever we do, whatever decisions we make, we should think of the generations that are coming. We cannot decide for them how they should be fed. We should start by feeding them right and then let them tell us, no, we're not happy with good food. We want the ones that have chemicals in it. We owe it to this generation that are here. Recently, there was a very horrible news. It was an eight-year-old that died from cancer. Every time I hear those kinds of news, you will think that person is my relation. Because I know that your first doctor is your soil, is the farmer who is growing the food you're eating. And this is why we always say that if you have happy soil, you're gonna grow happy food. People eat happy food, they're gonna be happy people. 10 years from now, I want to see a remarkable achievement in this space whereby our food security is secure because we are eating right. Even the FAO says that there is hidden hunger, including Nigeria, including so many other African countries. And what is hidden hunger? You are eating, but you're not swelling your body. No nutrients to support. When I had I was at a session sometime ago when a gentleman was telling us that when we say children are failing in schools, we always blame the parents. He said we should blame the parents because of the food they're feeding them. That the food they're feeding them is not building their brain, it's depleting it because they're eating nothing. So I want a world where even if we don't do anything, let at least 50% of the future of food be the one that will heal the world. And sorry to the doctors, our hospitals will be advocating good food, better nutrients, and not just medication, synthetic drugs.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:39

Wow, that is a world that I would want to live in as well. Having a world free of uh diseases and where like the food that we are eating has the highest quality of nutrients, and the soil that we are using to grow the food is of the highest quality. That is the world that uh I will also want to live in. So thank you very much for painting such a beautiful world. Yeah, so as we finish, I usually have this thing I call rapid fire questions. I have prepared 10 questions for you. So the idea is I'll just throw these questions to you and you'll be able to give me short and quick answers to the questions. So are you ready? Yes, I am. So the first question is what is the one thing you wish young farmers knew before starting?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

That there is a huge value chain in agriculture. It's not everybody that will carry the hole or the mower or the tractor. There are so many things that you can do and you can be in that space.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:38

Second question: what is the biggest misconception people have about organic farmers?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:43

That it's not possible and that some people are just lying, telling us a bundle of stories. I say it is. There are people like me and a few other people that I know that are doing it and they've succeeding at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:57

All right, so the third question: who inspires you most in the organic farming movement?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

That is a tough one to crack because there are more than one. But there is a particular gentleman, he's late now, he passed away this year. He was the first person that told me that I can achieve it. Everybody told me I couldn't. But he was the first person I met who said, You can do it. I've done it and I've succeeded at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:25

All right. Fourth question: if the soil could speak, what do you think it will say to humans?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

Take care of me, pump on me, feed me, nurture me, and I will give you bountiful harvest in return. Don't kill me with synthetic fertilizer.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:43

All right. Fifth question: describe organic farming in one word. Life. Sixth question: what is the most underrated skill for an organic farmer?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

The power of observation. At times when I get into the farm, I get out of my car, I've not even worked, I've not taken 10 steps, and I can the whole place is talking to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

Seventh question: if you had to farm one crop for the last of your life, what will it be? Private ginger.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:13

Every part of it is useful, and I love it. And you can make money from it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

Eighth question: what is one piece of advice new farmers should ignore?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:25

Ignore the stories they tell you about organic agriculture or regenerative or sustainable farming, not doable. You need to get out of the noise and come into your own.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:41

And it's only a mindset shift that will do that for you. All right. Uh, ninth question: what is one quote that you live by?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

I always tell people believe in yourself, believe in yourself, do not let naysayers get hold of you. If you believe it, try it. It's better to try it and fail than never to have tried it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:06

All right. Last question. If you could advise your 18-year-old self, what would you advise her?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Have mentors who can guide you, hold you by the hand, and be receptive to what they want to share with you, especially if they're highly experienced. A mentor just wants to pour into others, especially when they've seen life at its peak. Have a good mentor or have mentors. Some of them you'll never meet

Why Training Changes Mindsets

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

them, read their books and learn every little thing you can from their books.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:45

I completely agree with that because I've had the opportunity to get in contact with a lot of people in the organic sector. They have been really gracious and helping me see things that I normally could not see because they have gone through that. So, yeah, that's a powerful reminder as well. So, thank you very much for making time for the podcast. I really appreciate it. And thank you for being open for sharing your ideas and some of the wisdom you've gathered throughout the years. If people want to follow your work or get in touch, how what is the best way they could do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:19

That would be LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

Yeah, thank you very much. So I hope you got to learn a lot from this conversation. You can always check out Sula on social media platforms. She shares a lot of really good nuggets and information that you will definitely like. And uh, till the next podcast, remember to be running.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:41

Thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website, investinginregenerativeagriculture.com slash posts. If you like this episode, why not share it with a friend? And get in touch with us on social media, our website, or via the Spotify app and tell us what you like most. And give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really, really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.