Turnkey Agricultural Projects
For investors and agricultural operations, AGIMEX undertakes turnkey and integrated agricultural projects — turnkey greenhouse, orchard, irrigation and field irrigation projects — combining project development and engineering, procurement and supply, systems integration, installation, automation, testing and commissioning within one agreed scope. “Turnkey” describes that integrated delivery scope, not a fixed EPC or lump-sum contract model; responsibilities are defined in each contract.
Define the investment before the infrastructure
A project brief that starts from equipment has already made its most expensive decisions implicitly. The starting point is the production objective: what is being grown, for which market, at what capacity, on which site, with what water and energy actually available. From that come the design basis, the scope boundary and the investment assumptions. Equipment selection is a consequence of those, not an input to them.
Six delivery stages in sequence: define, engineer, supply, install, automate and commission. Responsibility for each stage is defined project by project, and not every project includes every stage.
- DefineRequirements, site, water and production objectives
- EngineerDesign, calculations and specifications
- SupplyApproved components and procurement coordination
- InstallField implementation and integration
- AutomateControl, measurement and monitoring
- CommissionTesting, handover and operational readiness
What turnkey means here, and what it does not
Turnkey is used loosely in this market, so it is worth being precise. AGIMEX undertakes turnkey agricultural projects — greenhouse, orchard, irrigation and field irrigation projects — in which design, engineering, procurement and supply, installation and field implementation, automation, testing and commissioning can sit within one agreed scope, and it takes responsibility for the technical coherence of the result. What the word does not settle on its own is the contract model. Whether a project is contracted as EPC, on a lump-sum basis or with some packages held by the client is decided in the contract, together with who carries supply, installation, construction and acceptance responsibility. Turnkey describes the integrated scope, not a fixed allocation of risk.
Requirement before product
Technology selection is the last step of a chain, not the first. A production or investment requirement produces agronomic and physical conditions; those establish the system behaviour the project needs; that behaviour becomes engineering criteria; the criteria produce a system architecture; and only then is technology specified and selected. A practice that starts at selection has no criteria to select against, and every later decision inherits that gap. This is also why being an official Netafim dealer does not make the work product-led: the dealership operates at selection, several steps after the requirement was established independently.
When a project developer should be involved
The most common point of contact is too late: after the technology has been chosen, the supplier shortlist has been fixed and the contractor is on site. At that stage the useful contribution is limited to correcting what can still be changed. Involvement before technology, supplier and contractor decisions are locked allows the project definition itself to be examined — capacity, phasing, technology level, interface boundaries, procurement route. That is where project definition can still materially improve. It does not guarantee an outcome, and no responsible party should tell an investor that it does.
The disciplines a project brief has to reconcile
Agronomy sets what the crop needs and when. Hydraulic engineering establishes whether the site can deliver it. Electrical and control engineering determine whether the system can be operated as designed. Civil and structural work set what has to be built. Procurement determines what is actually available, at what lead time and at what cost. Commercial analysis decides whether the result is worth building. These constraints contradict each other regularly, and a project brief is largely the record of how those contradictions were resolved and on what grounds.
Integration is the work, not a by-product
A turnkey scope is not a promise to supply everything. It is a commitment to make separately-supplied things work as one system. Depending on scope, that can mean delivering and coordinating agronomy, engineering, technology, procurement and supply, implementation, commissioning and operations — and, more importantly, the interfaces between them, which is where separately-procured projects usually fail. Which of these a project includes is written into its scope rather than assumed. In an AGIMEX turnkey project those interfaces are written down during design: the water source and the headworks, the headworks and the field network, the structure and the systems installed inside it, fertigation and the irrigation programme, automation and the electrical supply, each package and its installer, and the installed system and the people who will operate it. A product can meet its own specification and still fail at one of these boundaries, which is why each interface is given an owner and an acceptance check.
Engineering, technology selection and procurement planning
Technology selection is carried out against the design basis rather than against a preferred supplier. AGIMEX is not tied to a single manufacturer, and its official Netafim dealership is stated openly rather than hidden inside a recommendation. Procurement planning covers lead times, interface responsibilities, spare-part and service reach, and what happens when a specified item is unavailable. Supplier interfaces are defined during design, because the gaps between separately procured packages are where projects usually fail.
Implementation, inspection and commissioning
Where installation and field implementation are in AGIMEX's scope, the work covers the installation itself as well as sequence, site readiness, interface control between packages, inspection against specification, and the resolution of the deviations that every project produces. Acceptance criteria are written before commissioning rather than negotiated after it, because criteria agreed after the fact tend to describe what was built instead of what was required. Commissioning is a functional test against those criteria, not a handover ceremony.
Handover, training and operational optimisation
A commissioned system that nobody can operate is not a completed project. Handover covers operating documentation, the routines the system assumes, the failure modes the operator will meet first, and training against the actual installed configuration. After handover the useful question is whether the system performs as designed, which requires the design assumptions to have been recorded in a form that can later be compared against operation.
Scope is configured project by project
There is no standard package. A project may need only the investment definition and engineering; another may need full delivery through installation and commissioning; another may begin with an existing installation that underperforms. What stays constant is that the scope, the division of responsibility and the evidence each deliverable rests on are written down at the start — including what is explicitly outside AGIMEX's scope and who carries it instead. Typical scopes include turnkey greenhouse projects, turnkey orchard projects that combine irrigation, fertigation and automation, and turnkey irrigation and field irrigation projects.
Information to get started
- Crop and production objectives
- Site, water and energy information
- Investment stage and target programme
Potential deliverables within the agreed scope
- Design basis and scope matrix
- System interfaces and procurement plan
- Acceptance, training and operational readiness plan
These are examples, not limits. Deliverables depend on site assessment and the agreed scope of work, and a project may require engineering outputs not listed here.
Discuss a turnkey projectFrequently asked questions
- What does a turnkey agricultural project mean?
- It means the design, engineering, procurement and supply, installation, automation, testing and commissioning needed to deliver an agricultural system are planned and carried out within one agreed project scope, so the investor follows a single delivery programme instead of managing each step separately. AGIMEX undertakes turnkey greenhouse, orchard, irrigation and field irrigation projects on this basis. “Turnkey” describes that integrated scope; it does not by itself mean an EPC or lump-sum contract, and the responsibility for each part is defined in the contract.
- How does a turnkey project differ from buying each part separately?
- With separate supply, irrigation, electrical, structural and automation work come from different companies, and the gaps between them usually surface on site. A turnkey approach defines those interfaces during design and writes the acceptance criteria at the start.
- What is inside a turnkey scope and what is kept outside?
- Scope is written down for every project. It records which of design, engineering, procurement and supply, installation, automation, testing and commissioning AGIMEX carries, and which items — for example civil works, structure manufacture or supplier drawings — sit with others, so it stays clear whose work produced which result.
- How long does a turnkey agricultural project take?
- Duration follows the crop, the scale, permitting and procurement lead times, so no single figure applies. Because planting windows and contracting are linked, a realistic programme can only be drawn once site and water data are settled.
Related engineering evidence
Seed-Maize Drip Irrigation, Fertigation and Automation
Implemented and commissioned — A seed-maize field with fertigated drip irrigation, block-level hydraulic control and soil-moisture monitoring, observed with operating data through one production season.
Multi-Zone and Expandable Irrigation Infrastructure
Design completed — AGIMEX design of an irrigation infrastructure for orchard, vegetable, pasture and landscape areas with two water sources, zone control and phased expansion.
A comparison of roles. An equipment supplier starts from its own product and supplies it. An engineering consultant starts from a technical question and produces a design. A contractor starts from a defined scope and builds it. An EPC contractor takes single-point responsibility and carries construction risk. AGIMEX starts from the investment problem and can carry the project from development and engineering through supply, installation and commissioning; who carries construction risk is set by the contract, not by the word turnkey.
| Role | Typically starts from | Selects technology | Carries construction risk | Typical deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equipment supplier | Its own product range | Its own catalogue | No | Supplied equipment |
| Engineering consultant | A technical question | Advises | No | Design and documentation |
| Contractor | A defined scope of work | Rarely | For its own works | Constructed works |
| EPC contractor | A performance specification | Yes | Yes, single point | A completed facility |
| AGIMEX model | The investment problem | Independently, per project | As defined in the contract | Integrated delivery within the agreed scope, through commissioning |
A conceptual comparison of roles, not legal or contractual advice, and not a judgement about any company. The AGIMEX role is configured per project and written into the scope.
Explore our capabilities
Irrigation Engineering & Water Management
Irrigation design and engineering for commercial farms, orchards and greenhouses, and turnkey irrigation and field irrigation projects: AGIMEX carries crop-led hydraulic design and system specification and, within the agreed scope, procurement and supply, fertigation, automation, installation, testing and commissioning. AGIMEX does not manufacture irrigation equipment.
Greenhouse Projects
Greenhouse project design and engineering, and turnkey greenhouse projects, for growers and investors: AGIMEX connects crop strategy, structure, water, nutrients, climate and control in one design and, within the agreed scope, carries systems integration, procurement and supply, irrigation, fertigation, automation, installation, testing and commissioning. AGIMEX does not manufacture greenhouse structures; they come from qualified manufacturers.
Data-Driven Agriculture
For farms, greenhouses and agricultural investments with installed or planned infrastructure: AGIMEX defines the measurement architecture and monitoring requirements, reads operating data against the engineering design, and sets up decision support and performance evaluation. This is engineering and agronomic decision support, not a software product.
Agribusiness Advisory
Agricultural feasibility studies, technical due diligence, project preparation and design review for agricultural investments — advisory grounded in production systems, technical feasibility and operating realities.