Abuja — The Guaranteed Minimum Price regime effectively took off yesterday after officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture met with agents and banks to finalise details of the programme.

The new scheme is similar to the old commodity board arrangement which operated until 1986 in two main areas. The first is that one central body, the National Food Reserve Agency, instead of multiple organs, is overseeing its operations. The second is that large industrial silos will serve as storage facilities in place of the warehousing system that was used in the past.

The scheme is based on government-as-buyer-of-last resort strategy and revolves around state governments who will create three kinds of cooperatives (input delivery, production and marketing) to ensure market access.

It is hoped that the new programme will correct imbalances in the supply side of agriculture which left farmers exposed to risks in the past. The scheme takes into consideration what the farmer must have put into production. It also takes into consideration standards and quality assurance of what it calls clean grain.

The agency's executive director, Dr. Salisu Ahmed Ingawa, who represented Agriculture and Water Resources Minister, Dr. Abba Ruma, said that the programme is to ensure that farmers produce and sell their products at reasonable prices all through the year.

This means that there is no glut as government buys products from willing farmers at prices which ensure that they make profit even when prices of such commodities are skyrocketing in the open market.

The sum of N7.7 billion has been earmarked for the scheme which targets 194 metric tons of garri and assorted grains including millet, paddy rice, sorghum and maize.