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Dr. Moses Adeolu Adebayor

moses

When Moses Adeolu Adebayo was a boy in the western part of Nigeria he remembers trailing his father all day long. They spent hours together in the fields where father taught son everything he knew about farming. "I grew up in the village and we were always involved in raising crops - cocoa maize yam oil palm " Moses said I was always on the farm with my father planting harvesting just watching him. Moses said his father didn't just show him the routines of farming determined by the seasons but that he "taught me the art of agriculture. That meant for instance that instead of planting two seeds of maize together in a raised bed as most farmers did father and son would plant four in a hole - and later go back and thin out the weakest stands. Now as Moses enters his first year at the AGRA-sponsored doctorate program at the University of Ghana Legon he reflects on his own roots - and where he wants to go. He was the fifth of seven children to his parents growing up in the town of Modakeke. Of his siblings he was the only one to go to university eventually earning his master's degree in plant breeding research at the University of Ibadan. "A lot of factors contributed to why I went to university and my siblings did not " he said. "I was determined but also I was lucky. I found my way through somehow. Others dropped out but I made up my mind I was going to do it. Moses became a lecturer at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Ogbomoso in western Nigeria teaching genetics and plant breeding. For his doctorate studies he will do genetic analyses of cytoplasmic and maternal effects on maize seed vigor. In other words he will look to breed more productive maize seeds. "I have to contribute my quota for humanity for my country " he said. "I see it more as a calling than a mere academic pursuit. " Moses 37 a devout Christian who is married to Mojisola Adewunmi with three children said he fervently believes that "God has helped me get here." His father Adebayo Alpheus died several years ago. If his father were alive Moses believes he would be so pleased - a son teaching the father about farming. ''He would be proud of me " Moses said. "He would be praying for me.