Households food consumption pattern in Edo State, Nigeria: Application of alternative demand model

Abstract

The concern of food demand analyst is not to model food demand only but to obtain accurate estimates of price and income elasticities for  predicting household behaviour. To satisfy that, the study estimated a complete food demand system and estimated the price and conditional income elasticites of food demand on micro-data obtained from 252 household in Edo State using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model. The results show that households, in Edo state, spend more than half (57%) of their conditional food expenditure on starchy staple foods. The remaining 43% of household food expenditure is spent on other common food commodities with beans, meat and fish accounting for 11%, 16% and 12% respectively. The budget share for plantain, fufu, garri and yam respectively declines with rising conditional food expenditure while the budget share for rice, potatoes, bean and meat increases with increase in conditional food expenditure. The results show no strong complementarity and substitutability among majority of the food commodities in the State. Potatoes (1.101), and meat (1.156) are luxury food commodities in Edo state.

Keyword: food, household, budget-share, price- elasticity, income- elasticity