Cross-sectional analysis of food demand in the North Central, Nigeria

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of socio-economic variables on households' food demand. This paper derived the indirect utility function in terms of expenditure and price through the use of nonlinear demand quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS) model to estimate price, expenditure and elasticities of food items consumed in the North-Central, Nigeria, and the impact of the socio-economic variables on households' food demand. Design/methodology/approach - The primary data used came from random selection of 396 households between 2006 and 2007 through a stratified random sampling procedure from Kwara and Kogi states making up the North Central zone in Nigeria. Findings - All own price elasticities of the six food groups analyzed (root and tubers – RT, cereal – CR, legume – LG, animal protein – AP, fruits and vegetable – FV, fats and oil) showed that they are price inelastic. The results of income elasticity show that AP consumption is the most sensitive to income changes, while fats and oil is the least sensitive to income changes. Factors that positively and significantly affected demand for LG, FV, AP, CR and RT were household size (HSZ), level of education, primary occupation, access to credit, presence of children =6 years mainly at Originality/value - This paper is original and novel in that it examines the impact of socio-economic variables on households' food demand. High-income elasticities of demand for all the food groups in QUAIDS except fruits and vegetable, as well as fats and oils, suggests that income-generating policies will foster higher levels of consumption for these commodities.