Price responsiveness and class substitution of white and yellow garri in Abakaliki Metropolis of Ebonyi State
Abstract
The increasing price volatility and variations of food commodities is now a common phenomenon. However, the responsiveness of consumers to price and class substitution of the commodity seems not to have received scholarly attention. A combination of purposive sampling technique involving systematic approach was used to select 90 respondents for the study. Primary data were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data generated. The results showed that price exerted significant effect on the consumption of white and yellow garri in Abakaliki metropolis as the coefficient of price of both yellow and white garri were positively signed and significant at 1% (P = 0.01) level; and the Fratios were 286.891 & 392.869 for yellow and white garri respectively. The result further indicated that 58.9% of the respondents patronized white garri while 41.1% of them patronized yellow garri. The class analysis revealed that there exist four classes of garri consumers in the area which individual analysis showed that white garri was mainly consumed by students (41.5%) and farmers (30.2%) while, civil/public servants (48.7%) were the major consumers of yellow garri. The result showed that the consumption of white garri was influenced by organoleptic, health and economic factors while organoleptic, health and social factors influenced yellow garri consumption. The coefficient of price elasticity of demand for white garri was 0.7, implying that it is inelastic while that of yellow garri was 1.3, signifying elastic. The study recommended improving the organoleptic quality of white garri so as to make it compete favourably with yellow garri.
Keywords: Garri, class, organoleptic, demand, elasticity and substitution
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