In 2020, Origin Tech Group put out a call for graduate engineers and agricultural engineers to apply for an internship with its farm machine manufacturing company, Origin Automobile Works. Since then, the Origin Automobile Works internship kicked off with a tedious recruitment process to source for the best of the best engineering talents in Nigeria. The internship provides an adequate opportunity for Engineering graduates in Nigeria engineering to join the agricultural value chain.
The Food and Agriculture Organization maintains that the only way to cover the gap between where Nigeria’s agricultural sector is and where it should be, is intense farm mechanization. Farm mechanization is not just about the machines though, these agric machineries and implement when produced need expert hands to deploy and maintain them. OAW internship is a specialized program to produce homegrown mechanical engineers, agric engineers, automotive engineers and electrical engineers.
The OAW internship was created to cover the ground between the academic training and the needed field expertise on farms and farm machinery workshops. Speaking to Olawale Adewale Idris, one of the graduate interns, he describes his Origin automobile Works internship period as a time of arduous learning. “During my internship, I met other interns who were smart,” Idris says.
“I contributed to hands-on experimental and practical work on heavy duty components, coupling of planters, ploughs, harrows, ridgers and tractors with harvesters. So far, I have worked in over 50 farms.”
Another intern taking great strides is Abel Okpeke Godwin, who is currently working in Edo state, Nigeria. So far, he has facilitated the mechanization of 50 hectares of water melon farm and 30 hectares of cassava farm in different farm operations. OAW interns from the last cohort are now hub managers across Origin Tech’s tractor centers across Nigeria.
Origin Automobile Works remains committed to helping young talents in the agricultural value chain to equip and develop themselves with the necessary skill to strive towards the full mechanization of Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
