Nigeria has put a price floor under its grain farmers, launching a ₦200 billion Guaranteed Minimum Price programme designed to protect growers from the sharp price crashes that have eroded farm incomes. The scheme, run by the Bank of Agriculture, was inaugurated in Abuja and provides a floor price for farmers producing selected grains and other commodities, according to Voice of Nigeria.
How the Floor Works
The mechanism responds to a specific pain. Prices of major commodities including maize, rice, sorghum and soybeans fell below import parity in 2024 and 2025, leaving many farmers unable to recover their production costs, and the programme now guarantees that farmers who cultivated maize during the 2025 dry and wet seasons will receive a floor price of ₦350,000 per tonne where market prices fall below that level, according to Tribune Online. The Bank's Managing Director, Ayo Sotinrin, said purchases would be made directly from genuine farmers rather than traders, with payments sent electronically to farmers' bank accounts, and that grains would later be released to the market at a subsidised ₦380,000 to ₦390,000 per tonne, according to Voice of Nigeria.
Who It Aims to Reach
The scope is national. The programme is delivered by the Bank of Agriculture alongside the Nigerian Commodity Exchange and the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, and it targets more than 500,000 farmers, the aggregation of at least 400,000 tonnes of grains and outreach to roughly 11.25 million households, according to Nairametrics. The Exchange's Managing Director, Anthony Atuche, said the first phase would benefit about 500,000 farmers this season, with plans to expand to two million farmers next year and five million over the longer term, the same report noted.
Not a Giveaway
Officials were careful to frame the money as an investment rather than a handout. The Bank stated that 85 per cent of the programme's funding is expected to be recouped through commercial sales, stressing that the ₦200 billion should not be regarded as a subsidy or grant, according to MSME Africa. The launch also builds on subsidised credit lines offered at about nine per cent interest, an attempt to pair cheaper production loans with a guaranteed price so farmers can repay debts even when harvest-time prices fall.
A floor price protects farmers, but it is also meant to smooth the swings that reach the shopper. FoodPrices Nigeria tracks verified retail prices for maize, rice and other grains across Lagos markets, where the test of any price-stabilisation scheme is whether it steadies the cost of a meal.
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