Bamire Adebayo Simeon, a native of Oyan in Odo-Otin Local Government Area of Osun State, Nigeria, was born in 1959. He commenced his elementary education at Datus Nursery/Primary Preparatory School, Accra, Ghana and completed it at St. Clares’ Nursery and Primary School, Osogbo. He attended St. Charles’ Grammar School, Osogbo, from 1972 to 1976.

Professor Bamire was admitted into the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife), where he studied Agricultural Economics and was awarded a Bachelor of Agriculture (B.Agric.) degree in 1985. He also obtained his M.Phil. and PhD degrees from the university in 1992 and 1999, respectively. His PhD programme attracted sponsorship from the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in 1997 and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in 1998. His PhD thesis won him the “National Universities Postgraduate Theses Award” in 2001.

Prof. Bamire joined the Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife as Assistant Lecturer in 1992 and rose to the post of Professor in 2008. He has taught courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and successfully supervised undergraduate projects and postgraduate theses at the Master and PhD levels within and outside Nigeria. He has also assessed colleagues for promotion to the Professorial cadre and served as an External Examiner at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels within and outside of the country. He has over 100 research-based publications in reputable local and international outlets, comprising contributions to books, scientific journals, refereed conference proceedings, technical reports, monographs, and delivered the University’s 315th Inaugural Lecture.

No doubt, Professor Bamire comes prepared for the position, having been exposed to intense leadership and managerial training over the years in the course of his academic career in the university. He was a Visiting Scientist at IITA, Ibadan, in 2004; Vice-Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University (2007-2009); Head, Department of Agricultural Economics (2011-2012) and Dean, Faculty of Agriculture (2013-2015). In his capacity as Dean, he embarked on and completed laudable developmental projects in the faculty through donations from his social capital network, Alumni, and friends of the faculty. By virtue of his position as the Immediate Past Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), he was a member of the Governing Council for four years (2017-2021) and served as Chairman of some Committees and Boards in the university.

Professor Bamire has been exposed to research training opportunities early in his career through various training workshops organized by CODESRIA, IITA, AERC, and OAU. The experiences gained made it easy for him to guide colleagues and students in writing winning research proposals and establish important networks nationally and internationally. He has personally attracted research grants from notable international funding agencies into OAU as Principal Investigator and collaborated in research activities with other scientists within and outside the university. He led a baseline study sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), USA. This was made possible through his long-time collaboration with scientists at IITA; ILRI/DfID; HarvestPlus/IFPRI (Washington, DC., USA); International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico; Makerere University (Uganda); United Nations University Institute of Natural Resources (UNU-INRA), Accra, Ghana; United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki, Finland; African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya; and African University for Cooperative Development (AUCD), Cotonou, Benin Republic; among others.

Professor Bamire has attended different national and international conferences and workshops relating to biodiversity and sustainable agricultural development and has participated in collaborative studies involving researchers from various disciplines on sustainable agricultural production. He has participated in and written different technical reports that relate to practical field experiences in agricultural business and development in Nigeria and other developing nations.

Prof. Bamire is a Fellow of international organisations such as CODESRIA, IITA, Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD), and an Associate Senior Research Fellow of the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED). He has attended many conferences within and outside Nigeria and is a member of various professional associations. He has also received various awards and honours.

Prof. Bamire is computer literate with excellent knowledge of the application of statistical and econometric tools. He has participated and still participates as Principal Investigator in different on-farm researches and as Resource Person in training programmes that have provided long-term interactions with farmers and non-farmers in their communities and business concerns.

Prof. Bamire has proven to be consistently diligent, committed, disciplined, resourceful, reliable, and has a good team spirit. Above all, he is God-fearing. He has good insight and experience of best business practices that could contribute immensely to system development, having served in different committees and assisted tremendously in promoting academic and research programmes in his department, faculty, and the university as a whole.