Complete household demand system of vegetables in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Fruit and vegetable consumption has been shown to be an important part of any diet leading towards good health, but little is known about the vegetable demand behaviour at finer levels of disaggregation in Nigeria. Hence, this study estimated the price and income (expenditure) elasticities of demand for the commonly consumed vegetables among households in the Ogun State, Nigeria. Data were collected with the use of a well-structured questionnaire administered to one hundred and twenty (120) households that were randomly selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure. The data were analysed by simple descriptive statistics and estimation of a Nonlinear Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (NQAIDS) of vegetable demand behaviour of households sampled. The results show that income elasticity of demand for Bitter leave (-3.43) and the Eggplant (-3.67) are elastic, while income elasticity of demand for Tomato (0.27), to which about one-third of vegetables expenditure are devoted, is inelastic. The results further revealed thatown-price elasticities of demand carry the expected negative signs for all the vegetables and are generally inelastic. Estimates ofcross price elasticities show the dominance of substitutability among the vegetables with only few cases of complementarities.

Keywords

• almost ideal demand system
• complementarity
• elasticity
• substitutability
• vegetable