Origin Tech unveils model to boost agric investment

Origin Tech Group has launched a new agricultural investment vehicle, Corporate Farm, aimed at mobilising private and institutional capital into large-scale farming operations across Nigeria.

The initiative, unveiled in Lagos, seeks to address long-standing structural challenges in the agricultural sector, which the company’s Executive Chairman, Samuel Johnson Samuel, said have historically eroded investor confidence despite the country’s vast agricultural potential.

Samuel explained that the scheme is designed for investors with a minimum landholding of 1,000 hectares, requiring equity contributions ranging from 20 to 50 per cent, while Origin Tech Group and partner banks finance the remaining capital requirements. According to him, investors can participate with a minimum commitment of $3 million.

“For poultry and aquaculture operations, participants must operate at scale, raising at least 250,000 birds or the equivalent fish stock,” Samuel said, noting that the model has been structured to significantly reduce risks for financial institutions.

“Almost every bank in Nigeria that has invested in agriculture has lost money. Most people who invested with their pensions have also lost money. That is the problem we are here to solve,” he said.

Samuel argued that the core problem in Nigerian agriculture is not the quality of produce but the fragmentation of farming operations, which makes mechanisation, service delivery and logistics inefficient.

He recalled that a tractor-on-demand platform the group launched about 15 years ago, modelled after the ride-hailing economy, failed because farms were too scattered to service profitably.

“We had a fantastic business model with Tractor On The Go, an Uber-style contractor service. But our farmers are not clustered. You travel 15 kilometres to service one hectare. The cost of just going there to repair a tractor was not sustainable. That is the lesson that shaped everything we are now building,” Samuel said.

He added that the nation’s agricultural sector has absorbed about $40 trillion in investment over the past four decades without commensurate improvements in food production or a reduction in food imports in many developing economies.

The Corporate Farm platform, he said, addresses these structural gaps by integrating four major service pillars: Whole Farm, Farm for Me, Harvest for Me and Support Smallholder Farmer.

Under the Whole Farm model, Origin Tech provides end-to-end farming services covering land clearing, ploughing, planting, farm management, and harvesting, alongside the deployment of mechanised equipment and technical expertise. The service is designed for farms ranging between 300 and 1,000 hectares.

Samuel described Corporate Farm as the culmination of several projects the group has developed over the years to build a scalable agricultural investment framework.

Central to the model is a guaranteed market mechanism designed to purchase harvests ranging from one metric ton to produce valued at up to ₦500 billion. According to him, the arrangement is intended to eliminate one of the biggest risks faced by farmers and investors — the inability to sell harvested produce.

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Under the investment structure, participants who provide land and equity receive a comprehensive package that includes land preparation, planting and the deployment of expatriate farm managers for the first two farming cycles. Origin Tech also pledges to guarantee specific production targets and returns.

“If we tell you the return is 30 per cent, you get 30 per cent. If we say 10 tons per hectare, you achieve that,” Samuel said.

“We will hand-hold you through two harvests, and after that you will have trained managers who can carry it forward. We do not just walk away.”

For farmers who cannot meet the 1,000-hectare threshold, the model offers a cooperative structure through which smaller operators can pool land and resources to form an investable cluster. Samuel said this approach directly addresses the dispersion of smallholder farms that has long limited the commercial viability of agricultural services.

Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Abisola Olusanya, who spoke at the launch, described large-scale commercial farming as critical to solving Nigeria’s food security challenges.

According to her, the country’s heavily fragmented smallholder farming system can no longer sustain its growing population or meet modern food system demands.

“I have been to an individual’s farm of over 10,000 hectares. Even 1,000 hectares as the minimum to step into this game is still very small, but we must start from somewhere,” Olusanya said.

She noted that the Federal Government’s focus on food security under President Bola Tinubu, whose first executive order in 2023 addressed the issue, makes the timing of the initiative significant.

“The timing is perfect for all of us to come together to change the narrative around food systems in Lagos and particularly in Nigeria,” she said.

Olusanya added that despite Nigeria having tens of millions of smallholder farmers, food waste, post-harvest losses and persistent food insecurity continue to undermine the sector’s output.

“Nigeria is home to tens of millions of smallholder farmers, yet food waste, post-harvest losses and persistent food insecurity continue to undermine the sector’s output,” she said.

For her, the solution lies in shifting toward large-scale, commercially structured farming systems capable of attracting investment.

“The model we have to adopt must change, and that change must happen now,” she said.

She also emphasised that access to finance remains a major barrier to agricultural expansion, as financial institutions often lack reliable data and predictable investment frameworks.

“The financial institutions have always shied away from investing heavily in agriculture because they have nothing to really hold on to — in terms of numbers, in terms of the analysis required to show the returns on investment and the payback time,” Olusanya said.

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“With models like this, where there is a level of certainty embedded in it, I believe our financial institutions can start to have the confidence to put money behind our farmers.”

Also speaking, President of the Maize Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Bello Abubakar, said the nation’s agricultural potential remains largely untapped, with only about five percent of the country’s more than 80 million hectares of arable land currently under cultivation.

According to him, unlocking this land will require coordinated public-private collaboration.

“We have a very large area of land in Nigeria, more than 80 million hectares, but it is not being utilised. We have the land, but it is not cleared,” Abubakar said.

He called on the Federal Government to establish a structured public-private partnership in which government agencies focus on land development while private sector operators supply mechanised equipment and farming services.

“If you have mechanisation end to end — right from the beginning to the end — you have solved your problem about 70 percent,” he said.