Origin Tech builds agribusiness talent to enhance food security

As millions of agriculture graduates across the world struggle to secure jobs, Nigerian agribusiness and engineering conglomerate Origin Tech Group is expanding an internship programme aimed at closing the growing skills gap between university training and the demands of modern agribusiness.

With an estimated one to four million agriculture graduates entering the global labour market each year and many facing unemployment or underemployment, the company has graduated another cohort of interns from its flagship Origin Eagle programme. The firm is now preparing to recruit about 60 new participants into its fifth intake, reinforcing efforts to address Nigeria’s widening shortage of industry-ready agricultural professionals.

The graduation ceremony, held at the company’s premises, highlighted a structural challenge confronting Nigeria and much of sub-Saharan Africa: a rising number of students studying agriculture but a persistent shortage of graduates with practical industry skills.

Executive Chairman, Origin Tech Group, Samuel Joseph  Samuel, said the company established the programme after recognising that many university graduates lack hands-on exposure to modern agricultural technologies and equipment.

“Some of them went through the schools and never saw a tractor. Some of them went through the schools and never saw a crop implanted and harvested.These were some of the motivations that compelled us to act — to provide ourselves as a platform where students can come in and learn,” Samuel said.

Across Nigeria, universities enrol hundreds of thousands of students in agriculture-related disciplines each year. Yet industry leaders say a large share of those graduates struggle to transition into the workforce because their training is largely theoretical.

Samuel said discussions with agricultural student associations revealed a wide gap between academic training and the practical realities of modern farming and agribusiness operations.

“The biggest challenge is finding resources and young talent.The second is transferring knowledge and skill. The third is losing future leaders. How do we raise new leaders in this sector?”

Studies across sub-Saharan Africa suggest unemployment and underemployment among agriculture graduates can reach as high as 70 to 74 percent in some cohorts. Analysts attribute the mismatch to theory-heavy curricula, weak collaboration between universities and industry, and limited exposure to modern agricultural technologies such as precision farming, mechanisation and digital farm data systems.

The gap between academic output and labour demand is also evident globally. In the United States, labour forecasts suggest about 50,000 agriculture-related graduates will enter the workforce each year over the next five years, compared with more than 104,000 annual job openings across agriculture, food and environmental fields. Only about 48 percent of those roles are expected to be filled by agriculture graduates, leaving many positions occupied by professionals from unrelated disciplines.

In Africa, where agriculture accounts for a large share of employment and food systems face mounting pressure from population growth and climate change, the shortage of technically trained professionals remains even more acute.

Samuel said Origin Tech Group began addressing the issue more than a decade ago by supporting practical agricultural education in Nigerian universities.

“In 2012, Origin Group actually endowed a chair in three universities.We gave them greenhouses, we gave them tractors, and we also funded a programme,” he said.

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Among the institutions that benefited from the initiative are Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta and University of Ilorin, which received greenhouse facilities and training equipment designed to strengthen hands-on learning for students.

Since its launch in 2012, the Origin Eagle programme has trained more than 500 young Nigerians across several disciplines, including agronomy, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, architecture, urban and regional planning, quantity surveying and project management.

The programme blends classroom-style instruction with hands-on experience on major engineering and agricultural projects across the company’s operations, exposing participants to real-world agribusiness challenges.

Samuel said the initiative was also designed to change long-standing perceptions that agriculture offers limited opportunities for young professionals.

“Our sector has been marked out, quote-unquote, as a sector that is not profitable, as a sector that holds no future, and as a hard life.But we know that our sector is very profitable. Food is number one. Our sector produces everything that we use,” he said.

He added that the company deliberately maintains a demanding professional culture to prepare graduates for global careers.

“If you work in Origin Group, you can work in Siberia. You can work anywhere in the world. We push ourselves to the limits,” Samuel said.

According to him, recruitment within the organisation is strictly merit-based, with candidates selected through open application processes rather than personal referrals.

“None of them was selected from the back door or anything.We advertised, they applied, and they were selected. There is not a single person working in Origin Group that didn’t come on their own merits,” he said. “

Participants who complete the programme must formally apply if they wish to continue working with the company, although Samuel said many of the strongest performers eventually progress into leadership roles.

“We expect some of them to become future managers and chief executives within Origin Tech Group,” he said.

At the ceremony, the company also announced a new academic collaboration with Obafemi Awolowo University that will allow programme participants to pursue further studies under existing partnerships between the company and several local and international institutions.

Looking ahead, Origin Tech Group plans to formally launch the fifth cohort of the Origin Eagle programme within days. About 60 interns will be admitted into a four-year development track combining technical training, field experience and leadership development.

Samuel urged more private companies to invest in similar initiatives, warning that Nigeria’s agricultural transformation depends on developing the next generation of skilled professionals.

“Nigeria’s greatest challenge is not a lack of talent. The challenge is the lack of platforms willing to discover and develop it,” he said.

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