Hastom Nigeria Farmland in Ogbomoso: The Title Question Behind 16,000 Acres Sold

Hastom Nigeria sells farmland in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, and says it has moved more than 16,000 acres of it to over 1,100 clients across more than a decade. Those are the company's own figures, published on its website in September 2026, and they are the clearest statement of a delivery record the firm makes anywhere. What the company does not publish is the thing a farmland buyer actually needs: which land instrument the plots are sold under, and who holds it.

That distinction is the whole question in Nigerian agricultural land. Residential estate buyers have learned to ask for a Certificate of Occupancy. Farmland buyers often do not, because rural land is routinely transacted on customary holdings, family deeds and survey plans alone, and because the marketing language around agribusiness investment tends to talk about yield rather than title.

What the company has published

The business operates from the Hastom Cashew Centre, Alata Industrial Layout, Abaa, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, and structures itself in three parts: Hastom Food and Farms, covering commodity aggregation and trading, agri-inputs and machinery leasing; Hastom Properties, which is the farmland sales arm; and the Hastom Agricultural Institute, described as a centre for agricultural research and training.

The founder and chief executive is Debo Olushola Thomas, named in that role both on the company's About page and in press coverage of the group going back to 2021. The About page names eight further staff by role, including a head of operations, two farm managers, a head of farm operations, two marketing staff, a farm logistics person and an administrative assistant. That is an unusually complete public staff list for a Nigerian land vendor of this size, and it counts in the company's favour.

Its published operating numbers are 25,000 or more metric tonnes of cashew aggregated and traded, 16,000 or more acres of farmland acquired and sold, and 1,100 or more served and serving clients. A headline initiative, "10 Million Cashew Trees", is framed as "Transforming Oyo State into Africa's Cashew Capital".

Four organisations appear under a "Our Partners" heading on the homepage: the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Leadway Assurance Company Limited, the National Agricultural Seed Council and the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria. Three of those are federal research or regulatory bodies and one is a major insurer. The site displays their names and marks without describing what any of the relationships involves, so what a reader can fairly take from it is that Hastom presents these organisations as partners, not that a joint venture, offtake agreement or insurance product has been documented. Buyers who are relying on any one of those names should ask the company for the agreement, and ask the organisation directly.

The project that was announced and then went quiet

In October 2021 the group announced Valor City, described in coverage by National Insight News and Inside Oyo as a 2,100 acre development in the Ogbomoso zone of Oriire Local Government Area, planned around education, sports and tourism, with 400 acres set aside for educational facilities and a stated capacity of 80,000 to 100,000 residents and visitors. The founder was quoted saying the land had already been acquired, and physical development of the centre was to commence in January 2022.

Five years on, the picture is mixed rather than negative, and it is worth being precise about it. A dedicated website, thevalorcity.com, is still live and still markets the project, now describing over 2,000 acres located "within the bounds of Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Igbeti, and Oyo town, just 25 minutes' drive to the Ilorin International Airport". That description is looser than the 2021 one, which named a specific local government area. The site does not name a developer, state a construction phase, or mention any land title, approval or government consent.