Professor Raphael Olanrewaju Babatunde is a Professor of Agricultural Economics with over 20 years of teaching and research experience in the department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Ilorin, Nigeria. He obtained a First Class honours Bachelor degree (1998) and Master degree (2004) in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. He obtained a PhD degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany in 2009, with the grade “magna cum laude” (very good). Prior to this, he started working at the department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Ilorin, Nigeria in 1999 as a Junior Research Fellow and rose to the rank of Professor in October 2019.
Evidenced by internationally peer-reviewed publications, his main research area is in the domain of Agricultural and Development Economics. Under this main theme, he focussed more on poverty and food insecurity issues in developing countries, working on topics such as the drivers of poverty and malnutrition and economics of malnutrition in developing countries.
In terms of international research experience and networks, he was a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholar and Research Associate at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences in the Tropics and Sub-Tropics (490b), University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany between 2005 and 2009. He was a Visiting Researcher and DAAD scholar at the Chair of Development Economics, University of Passau, Germany in 2015 - 2016. Prior to this, he was a Visiting Researcher at the department of Globalization, Trade and Regional Integration, Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), Uppsala, Sweden in 2013. He was also a Visiting Fellow and Scholar at the Research Group on Food Security and Livelihoods, African Studies Centre (ASC), University of Leiden, Netherlands and Visiting Researcher at the department of Public Economics, University of Pavia, Italy in 2012 and 2010 respectively. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Young Academy (NYA), member of African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium (AGRODEP), member of DAAD ClimapAfrica Alumni Network and several other professional organizations, including the Nigerian Association of Agricultural Economists and African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE). He is a Fellow and Country Ambassador of the Centre for International Cooperation and Development (CICOPS), University of Pavia, Italy.
Prof Babatunde has been a Policy and Research Consultant to many international organisations such as Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), UNDP, IDRC and IFAD. Prof Babatunde is currently working on part-time basis as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) specialist and CAADP Technical Expert for the African Union Commission (AUC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to support the preparation of the Malabo Declaration Biennial Review report and Africa’s Agriculture Transformation Scorecards. Most recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Advisory Board of the African Agribusiness Alliance, Accra, Ghana. In this position, he would be deploying his experience to support the organisation’s mission of promoting a globally competitive, sustainable and inclusive African Agribusiness through investment facilitation, business development, access to finance and policy advocacy.
Prof Babatunde is Nigeria's Focal Person of the BMZ/GIZ project Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) in the West Africa region. He was the Principal Investigator of the IFPRI project on the role of Nigerian agriculture in West African food security. He is a very intelligent, hardworking and highly motivated researcher. In most assessments, he ranked among the top 5% of his colleagues. As a person, Prof Babatunde can be described as easy-going, friendly and very accommodating. He relates very well with all and sundry. He is very mature, trustworthy and a good team player with very good communication and interactive skills.