Happiness Ogba Oselebe’s recent appointment as Director of Ebonyi State University’s BRDC came along with her election to the university’s Governing Council—ensuring that this mother of six has plenty to keep her busy. But she readily took on these responsibilities, along with her job of teaching undergraduate and post-graduate students and supervising master’s and PhD candidates. Oselebe’s team propagates elite plantain and banana cultivars. They also select and develop high-yielding, drought-tolerant rice varieties, and multiply them in a BRDC Rice Foundation Seed Production project. These products are distributed to smallholder farmers at subsidized prices. She wants to encourage women to embrace plantain and banana cultivation as an income-generating venture. In addition, she wants them to have pure seeds of proven rice varieties for cultivation, to ensure that they get value for their labor.