Domestic Or Imported? An Analysis Of Rice Demand In Senegal

Rice is among the most important cereals for African countries which absorb more than half of worldwide exports. West African countries depend particularly on rice imports in order to achieve food security. For this reason, many policy measures are implemented by governments to regulate the market and reduce the import dependency. This paper contributes to the rice policy debate by analyzing the demand side using the case study of Senegal in West Africa. We analyzed detailed data on rice consumption using a large primary survey of 6,328 rural and urban households in Senegal, with the QUAIDS model. Qualitative data were also collected and analyzed to better interpret results. We found that rural households consume far less local rice than their urban counterparts, meaning that location is a determinant of local rice consumption. We also show that types of rice consumed differ between rural and urban consumers. Urban households consume relatively more whole grain local rice while rural households consume more broken imported rice. Thus, to increase consumption of local rice, efforts should thus be made on the availability of broken local rice for both urban and rural consumers. Our results indicate no substitutability between domestic rice and imported rice in urban households and weak substitutability in rural households. In addition, results show that rice demand is price inelastic. Thus, price policies like subsidies or taxes may not be good shifters of domestic rice consumption.