Households to benefit from N350,000 per-tonne grain scheme

The Federal Government has said its new guaranteed minimum price scheme for grains will affect more than 11.5 million households, as it moves to protect farmers from losses caused by fallen commodity prices.

Under the Renewed Hope Guaranteed Minimum Price (GMP) Programme, the government will pay eligible maize farmers N350,000 per tonne, while sorghum and soybeans will also be purchased under the scheme.

The Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, Ayo Sotinrin, disclosed this at the launch of the programme in Abuja, saying the intervention was introduced after prices of major cereals, including rice, maize, sorghum and soybeans, fell below import parity in 2024 and 2025, leaving farmers unable to recover their production costs.

He said some grain prices had fallen as low as N180,000 per tonne, while others were selling for about N250,000.

“Case in point, the solution for these depressed prices is the Guaranteed Minimum Price mechanism, which means that farmers, who have produced maize within the 2025 dry season and 2025 wet season will be able to get a floor price, if prices of commodities, which were depressed to about, I think, 180,000 at the lowest, are going for a bit to 250,000.

“The government will give N350,000 per ton through the Bank of Agriculture”, he said.

He added that the BOA is expected to aggregate more than 500,000 tonnes of grains under the programme, with hundreds of thousands or potentially millions of farmers benefiting.

“And it means that over 11.5 million households will be affected by this. And this is what I call leadership when it comes to governance, where the government has seen the problems in the sector, they’ve heard the cries of the farmers, and they’ve actually intervened”, he added.

The BOA boss said the scheme would not be restricted to politically-connected farmers, stressing that the programme is open to genuine farmers across the country.

“Now, in terms of how we design the programme, it is not a programme for some farmers, who are politically-connected. I need to say that. It is a programme for all farmers in Nigeria to benefit from”, he added.

“The grains will be purchased through farmer aggregation companies, with payments made directly into farmers’ bank accounts, while the aggregators will receive a fee for each metric tonne purchased”, he disclosed.

Sotinrin said the produce would then be stored in warehouses managed through commodity exchanges, with the Nigeria Commodity Exchange serving as a major partner. The warehouses will issue receipts after checking the quantity and quality of the grains delivered.

According to Sotinrin, the government will also use the stockpile to prevent grain prices from becoming excessively high, explaining that when market prices rise sharply, the stored grains could be released at subsidised prices to increase supply and bring down prices.

“It means that if grains, like it was in 2022, 2021, are going above 500,000 Naira, the Bank of Agriculture, which is managing the markets, will now release the grain into the market. When we release the grain into the market, we release it at a subsidised price, maybe about 380,000, 390,000 Naira”, he stated.

He said the intervention is specifically designed for farmers, and not traders.

The President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Muhammad Magaji, described the programme as a major development for farmers, saying the association had advocated guaranteed minimum prices for years.

“We have been putting pressure on the government, appealing to the government to have the GMP. I believe having it will give our farmers a very good price. And whatever you are doing, without a good price, I don’t think you can continue doing it”, Magaji said.

He said the policy would encourage farmers to continue production by ensuring that they received reasonable prices for their produce.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX), Anthony Atuche, said the exchange would provide the infrastructure needed to make the programme effective.

He said the NCX had warehouses across the six geopolitical zones, including community and farm-gate facilities that would give farmers and cooperatives direct access to the system.

Atuche said the exchange would also support commodity grading, price discovery, and transparency, while technology provided by the BOA would allow stakeholders to track the grains from production to the market.