Implicit price estimation of quality attributes influencing rice prices and choice decisions of consumers in Nigeria

Consumers’ preference for imported rice brands in Nigeria has been largely due to differences in the quality attributes of local and imported rice brands. This paper presents the findings of a study conducted in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nigeria to determine the relative importance and prices consumers pay for rice quality attributes. Hedonic model was estimated using 2014 dataset collected from a survey of 460 rice consumer households. The results showed that the household respondents paid an average price of NGN10,416 ($53) and NGN7,567 ($38) for a 50 kg bag of imported and local rice brands respectively. Quality attributes contribute about 48–52% of the prices consumers paid for rice. High swelling capacity, whiter after-cook color, neatness, and grains separateness mostly influence market prices of imported rice in Nigeria as consumers would pay an average of additional NGN326 ($1.65), NGN320 ($1.60), NGN158 ($0.80) and NGN122 ($0.61) respectively on these quality attributes in order to avoid local rice. These findings present rice breeders, processors and marketers with investment challenges as well as opportunities of which the implications for designing quality improvement and marketing policies and programmes for the development of Nigeria’s rice industry were discussed.