Guaranteed Minimum Price Programme: No More Distress Sales.

Every harvest season, the same scene repeats itself across Nigeria’s farming communities.

A smallholder farmer, Amina, a maize grower in a small community in Zaria, spends months tending her farm: buying seeds and fertilizer, weeding under the sun, watching the sky for rain. Harvest finally comes, and with it, a bumper crop she’s proud of. But so does everyone else’s. Within days, the local market is flooded with maize, and the middlemen who buy from farmers know it. They know Amina has no cold storage or warehouse and has bills to pay. So, they offer her a price below what she spent on inputs, not to talk of her labour inputs.

She has two choices: sell at a loss now or watch her harvest rot while she waits for a better offer that may never come.

This is called distress selling, and for generations it has been one of the reasons Nigeria’s food system struggles to grow as it should. It’s not a lack of farmers, or a lack of effort. It’s that hard work at harvest time has never come with a guarantee.

In the following season, Amina, along with millions of other farmers across Nigeria, may choose not to cultivate maize. This reduction in production could create a shortage in supply, driving prices beyond the reach of the average Nigerian household.

The Bank of Agriculture’s Guaranteed Minimum Price (GMP) Programme exists to close that gap.

What Is the Guaranteed Minimum Price?

In simple terms: the GMP is a promise, backed by the Presidency, that BOA will buy a farmer’s produce at a fixed, fair minimum price, no matter what is happening in the open market that week.

If market prices are higher than the guaranteed price, the farmer can sell for more elsewhere. But if prices crash, as they often do right after harvest, the farmer always has BOA as a reliable buyer who will not exploit that moment of vulnerability.

It removes the single biggest risk in farming: that the harder you work, the more you produce, the more likely you are to be underpaid for it, and this discourages continued production.

 How It Works — Step by Step

The programme is built to be simple enough that any smallholder farmer can use it, even without a bank account or smartphone. Here’s the full journey, from farm to payment:

• A Farmer Aggregation Company (FAC) mobilises farmers in a community, letting them know where and when to bring their produce.
• Farmers arrive at a designated aggregation centre or warehouse, aggregation points now being set up across all 36 states and the FCT.
• The commodity is weighed and graded on-site, so pricing is transparent and based on actual quantity and quality delivered.
• A BOA account is opened on the spot; no farmer is turned away for not having a bank account already. Biometric registration and digital onboarding happen right there at the warehouse.
• A debit card is issued immediately, the farmer’s first-ever bank card.
• Payment is made directly into the account. BOA’s target is to complete this within 48 hours, cutting out the delay (and the middlemen) that used to stand between a farmer and their money.

No haggling in the open market. No waiting weeks for payment. No selling to whoever shows up first with cash.

Which Crops Are Covered

The Guaranteed Minimum Price (GMP) Programme currently prioritises selected value chains that are critical to Nigeria’s food system, industrial growth, and rural economy.

• Maize: A staple crop that plays a vital role in food security and serves as a major input for the poultry feed industry.
• Sorghum: An important value chain that supports both the brewing and animal feed sectors.
• Soybean: A strategic crop that supports the edible oil, poultry feed, aquaculture, and food processing industries.

As the programme evolves, additional value chains will be incorporated in line with market readiness, processing capacity, and broader value chain considerations.

The Numbers Behind the Promise

The scale of this programme is what makes it different from previous, smaller interventions:

• Smallholder farmers targeted nationwide: 500,000+
• Commodities to be aggregated: 1 million+ metric tonnes
• Value chains supported: 5 (Maize, Sorghum, Soybean)
• States covered: All 36 states + FCT
• Target payment turnaround: 48 hours
• Price guarantee: Presidentially approved minimum price set on the BOA aggregation portal

These aren’t just impact statistics for a report; they represent a shift in how Nigeria manages the relationship between what farmers grow and what farmers earn.

Why This Matters Beyond the Individual Farmer

When BOA purchases any produce at scale, it isn’t just protecting individual farmers; it’s building a strategic grain reserve for the country. That reserve acts as a buffer during scarcity seasons, helping to dilute the price spikes that hit ordinary Nigerian households whenever supply tightens.

In other words, when a farmer in a rural community is protected from a distress sale, the ripple effect eventually reaches a family in Lagos or Abuja or Port Harcourt paying for a bag of rice. Food security starts on the farm, but it doesn’t end there.

What This Means for You, the Farmer

If you grow any of these crops, here’s what to know:

• You don’t need an existing bank account to participate; one will be opened for you at the point of aggregation.
• There’s no need to sell in a panic after harvest. Bring your produce to your nearest accredited warehouse or connect through your local Farmer Aggregation Company.
• You will be paid directly, into your own account, typically within 48 hours.
• Whatever the market does that week, you have a floor price you can count on.

For too long, the story of harvest season in Nigeria has also been the story of the distress sale, the farmer who did everything right and still lost out at the very last step. The Guaranteed Minimum Price Programme is BOA’s answer to that story: a guaranteed buyer, a fair price, and a bank account that opens as fast as the warehouse scale that weighs your grain.

Your produce has a home at BOA warehouses. Bring it in. Get paid directly. No stress