EVALUATION OF CONSUMERS’ PURCHASING BEHAVIOR FOR PROCESSED RICE IN MINNA, NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study evaluate consumers purchasing behaviour for processed rice in Minna, Niger State Nigeria. Data were collected from 114 respondent’s rice consumers across markets in Minna and this was done to understand the consumer preferences for rice variety for desired attributes. The study used multinomial logistic, garret ranking techniques and budget share index as analytical tools. The study revealed from the result that for the category of local rice only the coefficient of education is statistically significant at P< 0.01 and has a negative effect on the consumer preference for local rice. Result indicates that among the factors that consumers consider when they are purchasing rice in the study area, rice purity was the most important factor and ranked first with Garrett Mean Score of 61.04 followed by price ranked second with a garret mean score of 58.48 and the third factor was food safety with mean score of 56.53 while the least factor to be consider by the consumer was rice aroma with the mean score of 36.61. It was also revealed that the household’s monthly budget share on rice (local and foreign) in Minna was 0.35 which implies that 35% of the household’s monthly food expenditure were spent on rice consumption. The budget share on rice, beans, semovita/maize, yam and garri were estimated as 34%, 5%, 15%, 10% and 8% respectively and this clearly shows that rice constitutes a larger proportion of the household’s monthly food expenditure relative to beans, maize, yam and garri. It was concluded that as the marketing process becomes more complex and competitive, understanding consumers’ preference for rice attributes is becoming very important in order to improve the rice quality for marketability. Hence, paying attention to attributes of locally produced rice is therefore important right from production and through the entire market chain for improving competitiveness as well as securing future rice markets.