AGCOMS International Trading Limited has launched the AGCOMS Academy, an industry-focused institution aimed at developing the skills and human capital needed to support Nigeria’s agricultural mechanisation drive.
The Chief Executive Officer of AGCOMS International Trading Limited, Mr. Chijioke Okoli, said the Academy was established to address a critical gap in the country’s agricultural transformation efforts-the shortage of skilled personnel capable of operating, maintaining and managing modern agricultural equipment.
According to him, while considerable attention has been devoted to the acquisition and deployment of tractors and other agricultural machinery, inadequate attention has been paid to developing the human capacity required to make such investments productive.
‘Machines are the easy part. The hard part, the part that decides whether a tractor works a thousand hectares or sits rusting behind a shed, is the person operating it and the business running it,’ Okoli said.
He said the Academy would focus on developing the human capital required to transform investments in agricultural machinery into higher productivity and commercially viable agricultural enterprises.
‘That is the gap I want the Academy to fill: the human capital that turns equipment into productivity, and productivity into profit,’ he added.
AGCOMS, an authorised dealer of agricultural equipment, has built experience in the sector through the sale, servicing and deployment of agricultural machinery.
Okoli disclosed that the company had, prior to the establishment of the Academy, trained more than 380 people across the public and private sectors.
He said the experience demonstrated that the success of agricultural mechanisation depended significantly on the availability of properly trained operators, technicians, managers and entrepreneurs.
‘You do not mechanise a country by shipping in equipment alone. You mechanise it by building the people who make the equipment productive before they arrive,’ he said.
The Academy’s initial programmes will target tractor and machinery operators, technicians, mechanisation-service entrepreneurs and managers responsible for agricultural operations.
Its flagship programme, Mechanisation Enterprise Management, is scheduled to commence in Abuja in November.
The institution is expected to subsequently expand its training portfolio across the agricultural mechanisation value chain, with programmes designed for supervisors, business owners and executives.
Okoli said the Academy would adopt a practical, industry-based training model, drawing on AGCOMS’s experience in operating and servicing agricultural equipment.
‘We teach what we operate,’ he said, stressing that the programmes would be based on practical experience with real equipment, field operations and the commercial realities of running agricultural enterprises.
The launch comes amid renewed efforts by the Federal Government and other stakeholders to expand agricultural mechanisation as part of measures to boost productivity, strengthen food security and modernise Nigeria’s agriculture sector.
AGCOMS has already participated in the training of tractor operators under the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) mechanisation programme, including an initiative to train up to 4,000 operators ahead of the deployment of 2,000 John Deere tractors.
Beyond addressing the immediate shortage of technical personnel, Okoli said the Academy would also seek to change young Nigerians’ perception of agriculture by presenting the sector as a modern, technology-driven and commercially attractive industry.
‘Modern agriculture is a technology business and an entrepreneurial one,’ he said.
He added that the broader objective was to develop a new generation of professionals capable of establishing viable agricultural businesses while improving the productivity and lifespan of mechanisation equipment.
In the long term, Okoli said AGCOMS hoped to develop the Academy into a respected institution whose graduates would contribute significantly to the growth of Nigeria’s agricultural mechanisation sector and eventually extend their expertise to other African markets.
‘We are not trying to be the biggest school. We are trying to be the one that made the sector work,’ he said.