Analysis of factors affecting households’ fish consumption in Erzurum, Turkey

Rüveyda Kızıloğlu,Halil Kızılaslan

doi:10.24289/ijsser.279055

Abstract

This paper focused on the socio-demographic factors influencing fish consumption in Erzurum, Turkey. The data were collected from 271 households by using face to face survey technique. The Logit model has been used to analyze the socio-economic factors affecting fish consumption of households. The prices of meat, chicken and fish, and income have been used as the variables affecting the probability of fish consumption. According to the results from logit regression analysis, red meat price, chicken meat price and income are significant and positively correlated with fish consumption. An increase in red meat price resulted in a 1.82 % increase in the likelihood to purchase fish. As in the price of meat, the estimated 0.02 change in probability for income indicated that a unit rise in chicken meat price caused a 2.25 % increase in the likelihood to purchase fish. In the light of the findings, it can be recommended that fish marketers and processors should consider income, the prices of red meat, chicken meat and fish among socioeconomic factors in their formulation of marketing strategies aimed at promoting fish consumption in Turkey. Furthermore, stocking and marketing conditions should be rearranged, and household and marketing standards should be formed.

Highlights

It is known that animal and plant protein intakes should be at certain levels for adequate nourishment
Marital status, age and education were excluded from the model as they were not found statistically significant at the level of 10 %
The analysis considered factors such as household size, marital status, age, education, red meat price, chicken meat price and fish price

Summary

Introduction

It is known that animal and plant protein intakes should be at certain levels for adequate nourishment. In Turkey, the share of animal protein intake in per capita protein consumption is very low and protein intake is plant based. One of its reasons is low level animal production, 42% within total agricultural production. Due to constant population growth and the necessity to make up for the gap in animal protein intake, existing resources of animal protein should be utilized efficiently (Sayin et al, 2010). Due to the fact that fish products are vital food source for animal protein, they are accepted as a noteworthy alternative for animal protein consumption (Hatirli et al, 2004). Equivalent and/or superior to meat, increasing fish consumption, which is not very common in Turkey, is considered as fundamental in terms of a balanced diet (Sen et al, 2008)

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Conclusion