By Faridat Salifu
More than 500,000 Nigerian farmers are set to benefit from a new market protection scheme designed to reduce income losses caused by fluctuating commodity prices and exploitative trading practices.
The Guaranteed Minimum Price (GMP) Programme was launched by the Nigerian Commodity Exchange (NCX) in partnership with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN).
NCX Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Atuche, said the scheme would give farmers greater certainty over the value of their produce by providing guaranteed prices and improving access to structured commodity markets.
He said farmers had for years suffered reduced earnings because of post-harvest losses and the activities of middlemen who take advantage of weak market access.
“For decades, post-harvest losses and predatory middleman dynamics have eroded farmer incomes. The GMP Programme changes this,” Atuche said.
According to him, the programme will use structured warehousing and transparent trading systems to protect farmers while improving the efficiency of Nigeria’s commodity market.
Atuche said the initiative targets more than 500,000 farmers, 400,000 metric tonnes of grains and approximately 11.25 million households nationwide.
The programme comes amid broader efforts by the Federal Government and BOA to improve farmers’ access to affordable financing and agricultural inputs.
BOA’s Renewed Hope Smallholder Agricultural Financing Programme, for instance, targets an increase in annual grain production from about 11 million metric tonnes to 25 million metric tonnes through subsidised inputs and single-digit interest financing.
The bank said the first phase of the financing programme is expected to reach about 500,000 farmers this farming season.
The GMP initiative is expected to complement such production support by addressing what happens after harvest, particularly farmers’ ability to secure fair returns from their produce.
