13/07/2026
4 AM. Waiting room. Yaoundé-bound bus.
Most people are sleeping. We're deep in a conversation about why African agriculture keeps producing poor farmers out of rich soil.
That's where I met Prof. Okolle Justin N., an Agricultural Professor, Researcher, and the kind of man who makes you feel underdressed intellectually at 4 in the morning.
We started with livelihoods. Moved to . Landed on agroforestry as a redesign thesis, that if you want farmers to win, you stop thinking monoculture and start thinking . Diversity isn't just good science. It's the actual business model.
Then he pulled out something I wasn't expecting.
Purple and orange flesh sweet potatoes. Varieties he's been experimenting on, not just for nutrition, but as genuine income-generating commodities for the smallholders farmers we work with.
Healthier feeding. Real market value. The kind of upstream thinking that Didi Agric was built to connect downstream at scale.
He also showed us farm input chemicals he's developed himself. The man doesn't just theorise, he formulates.
I introduced him to Ngenge Etienne (Co-Founder & CTO) & Brandon Itor (COO) before we even reached our destination. Because when you meet someone at that level, you don't wait for a formal meeting room.
We talked about TRACE FORUM 2027 and why that stage exists for exactly this kind of mind.
He's invited us to his research center.
The photos from this morning are not polished. The lighting is terrible. Nobody's in a suit. That's kind of the point, this is what the work actually looks like. 4 AM, a waiting room, and a conversation that may reshape how we think about what we grow, who grows it, and how they profit.
Africa's agricultural future isn't being written in boardrooms.
It's being drafted in waiting rooms, at ungodly hours, between people who are too curious to sleep.
📸 by: Bran Mokeba
