Enforce a minimum version of Maven

You can use the maven-enforcer-plugin and its enforce goal to specify a minimum required Maven version:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-enforcer-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.4.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>enforce-maven</id>
      <goals>
        <goal>enforce</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <rules>
          <requireMavenVersion>
            <version>3.2.5</version>
          </requireMavenVersion>
        </rules>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

If someone tries to build the project with a Maven version less than 3.2.5, the build will fail.

You can enforce a lot of different rules with this plugin (Java version, OS...); see the complete list on the plugin documentation.