Iyabo Farm Owner Gives the Daily Dirt
agriculture, culture, farming,
Whew. The Kwelis are busy people.
Johari Cole-Kweli and her husband, Sharadi, own and operate a 25-acre organic farm in Pembroke Township, and sell their produce to various stores and markets throughout the region. In the meantime, Cole-Kweli is also a microbiologist by trade, while Sharadi is a computer network engineer.
“No, there’s not much time for sleep in our lives,” Cole-Kweli jokes. “We don’t rest much.”
The farm they run is called Iyabo, a Nigerian word that means “the nurturer has returned.” The couple grows fertilizer-free crops such as kale, heirloom tomatoes, beans and a variety of peas, and also raise chickens, turkeys and goats.
They then sell their products to farmers markets in the Chicagoland area, as well as to organic food-buying clubs.
“We hope that we can be an example to people who might be thinking about going into the farming industry themselves,” she says. “It is very rewarding work, plus you eat the healthy products that you grow.”
Meanwhile, Cole-Kweli is also planning to return to college soon to earn her doctorate in microbiology. She also helps her husband with the couple’s T.E.C.H.S. Group Technology business, which provides computer-based services, from web design and desktop publishing to training and consulting.
“We help train people from ages 3 to 93,” she says. “My husband and I might host an hour-long tutorial seminar for high school students, then drive to a hospital to train doctors on a new computer technology for the operating room. Sharadi is a real tech-head, and I help him with seminars whenever possible. We are trying to make the Kankakee River Valley more computer savvy to increase our community’s trained labor pool, and more and more people are getting savvier with technology every day.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
