ABSTRACT
When assessing food balances, a greater proportion of the literature on plantain is mainly focused on issues bordering on enhancing the supply side of plantain. Considering the importance of plantain in food security, the demand side cannot be neglected. This study therefore focused on measuring demand behaviour for plantain consuming urban households in Edo state. The complete demand function, price and income and elasticities for plantain and other food items were estimated, and the effects of socio-economic variables on the expenditure pattern of plantain-consuming households were also examined.
The data used in the study were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of urban plantain consuming households in Edo state. A four stage sampling procedure was used to select 252 respondents for the study. However, only 204 copies of the questionnaire administered to the respondents were found useful for the analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data obtained. The descriptive statistics were frequency counts, percentages, mean scores and standard deviation. The inferential approach used the complete demand system of the LA/AIDS with the FM LOGIT model.
The results of the descriptive statistics showed that mean age of household head and household size were 44 years and 5 respectively. The household heads were mainly male (75%), married (79.9%) with tertiary education (79.7%). From the results of the inferential statistics, own-price effect of plantain implies that its budget share increased by 2.8% with increase in its own price. Expenditure coefficient of plantain (0.0138) indicated that budget share for plantain increased by 1.38% for a unit increase in food expenditure. Both own-price effect and expenditure coefficient were significant at 1% level. All the food commodities examined were normal goods. The estimated uncompensated (-0.6138) and compensated (-0.6700) own-price elasticity for plantain indicated that plantain was price inelastic, estimated expenditure elasticity for plantain was positive (1.1971) indicating that plantain was a luxury in the study area. The demand for plantain is so much a matter of own-price, cross-price and income. However, rice and garri were necessities in the study area. Households’ monthly budget share on food was the highest (0.32) among the broad commodities representing 32% of monthly household expenditure. Of all the food items examined, rice had the highest budget share (0.19) followed by meat (0.16). Among the starchy staples, plantain had the third lowest budget share (0.07) after potato and fufu representing 7% of the monthly food expenditure of households. Educational status of household heads had a positive effect on demand for plantain in the study area and was significant at 10% level while age and marital status of household heads had an inverse effect on plantain demand. It was recommended that mass sensitization should be launched to encourage households to be more involved in plantain production activities that would improve their income earning activities and enable them have better access to plantain fruits thereby reducing household food expenditure.
