By Dr Femi Ogunseinde

Integranium is a flagship large scale integrated program developed by MOFI to reboot the agricultural sector.

Focused on crop farming, livestock, and aquaculture, Integrainium will redefine preferred practices to engage various aspects of the farming operations across the entire value chain, from inputs to production and to trade.

This coordinated approach is expected to lead to a functional and up-to-date database on key farming information, improved yields, significantly reduced post-harvest losses, and well-established export programs.

The Integrainium program, in partnership with state governments, technical and operations service providers and farms, will initially be established in a select state within each geo-political region/zone. The individual programs will leverage the relative farming strengths of each state and region, eventually expanding to all states. The overarching goal is to deploy an updated, integrated farming practice that can exploit idle arable land to produce food for local consumption as well as exports. Its core structure will encompass various nodal stages of farming:

Upstream: Inputs, land access, and production.

Midstream: Harvesting, storage, and processing.

Downstream: Sales and distribution.

The initiative will also capitalize on other complementary programs, such as the Special Agro Processing Zones (SAPZ) and large-scale agro-commodities hubs. Through this comprehensive approach, farming in Nigeria will evolve from largely subsistence farming with disjointed operations to large-scale mechanized farming.

To spark critical conversations around this vision, especially in the area of crop farming, MOFI has organized the Integrainium Investment Forum: Crop Farming Roundtable. This platform is designed to engage stakeholders on critical issues that must be addressed to enable this transformation.

The Integrainium Investment Forum: Crop Farming Roundtable, powered by the MOFI Leadership Series, serves as a high-level, cross-functional engagement platform amongst key stakeholders that are focused on translating Nigerias agricultural potential into practical, scalable realities. This edition of the forum specifically focuses on Nigerias crop farming value chain. It is structured as a working session where government representatives, agribusinesses, farmers, technical service and capital providers, logistics specialists, and other key stakeholders will engage in focused conversations on challenges, models, and other investment and operational considerations.

Why Crop Farming? Why Now?

Nigeria’s agricultural sector, a significant contributor to the national economy, has consistently accounted for approximately 20-26% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in recent years (National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2023; International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2023). A substantial portion of Nigerian households, around 70%, are actively engaged in crop farming activities (Statista, 2024). Despite this widespread involvement and its economic importance, the sector faces considerable challenges that hinder its overall productivity. The sector is currently held back by several factors:

Largely subsistence farming with a yield of 2.0 tons/ha (vs 3.5 global avg)

Only about 1% of 34 Million hectares of arable land is irrigated

Mechanization of 0.3 hp/ha vs FAO recommendation of 1.5 hp/ha

Fertilizer usage of 20 kg/ha vs Global average of 135 kg/ha

Annual post-harvest losses of about 4060% of all produce due to lack of storage

These losses translate to about $10 billion lost annually

Cold Storage capacity of 2 Million MT needed but only 150,000 MT available

<5% of perishables use cold chain storage

Only 10% of output is processed locally

Processing capacity utilization is below 30% in many agro-processing zones

Nigeria imports over $10 billion worth of food annually

Lack of power, finance, and logistics infrastructure hampers growth

80%+ produce sold informally

Price fluctuation is up to 60% seasonally

10% farmers are linked to structured markets

Only 30% of rural roads in good condition

Over 80% of farmers rely on low-quality, uncertified seeds, reducing crop yields by up to 30% Integrainium aims to address these issues by building an integrated, coordinated value chain, improving infrastructure, and facilitating regional commercial agro hubs that connect producers with local buyers and exporters. The roundtable will evaluate these opportunities and explore how stakeholders can align around a shared execution model.

The Roundtable will feature thematic cohorts that will investigate captured pressure points in the crop farming value chain, including:

Land Preparation: Breaking Barriers to Scalable Farming

Exploring Solutions to Input Access Challenges:

Adopting New Farm Practices for Improved Yield (Enabled Farming)

Evolving Farming From Subsistence to Mechanized (Large Scale), to Precision. (Precision Farming)

Harvesting & Storage: Managing Post Harvest Losses

Voices from The Farm: Real stories

Preparing for Exports and Local Sales

Unlocking Capital: Structuring Investments Across Integraniums Value chain

Integranium – The New Eco-system for Crop Farming: Blueprint Development and Communication Approach

Each Cohort led by a sector practitioner will contribute toward identifying practical ideas, scalable models and actionable insights that can inform investment structuring, program design and execution under the Integranium initiative.

Through thematic cohort discussions and expert-led sessions, the key takeaways from the forum will be distilled into standards and expectations of stakeholders across the value chain. These will be captured as a blueprint. This blueprint will drive transparency and traceability of all activities and outcomes, guiding implementation across all Integrainium projects, especially for MOFI and her champions participating in the sector.

*Ogunseinde is the Executive Director Investment MOFI. He writes from Abuja