HEDONIC-PRICE ANALYSIS OF THE DEMAND FOR GRAIN CROPS IN NIGERIA: THE CASE OF RICE AND COWPEA

The observed price spread between different .. varieties or market samples of the same
variety of grain crops motivated this study. The objective was to identify the
desirable/undesirable physical attributes of selected grains, estimate the relative influences of
' such traits on market price, rank them in order of importance and to find out if the preferences
are significantly different across socio-cultural blocks in Nigeria.
The Consumer Goods Characteristic Model employed in this study is based on the
hedonic principle which views the pleasure/satisfaction/utility derived from the quality of a
product as a priced commodity. The marginal rate of substitution between income and a unit
change in each of some identified quality characteristics of cowpea and rice or Marginal Implicit
Price (MIP) was thereby derived. The discriminant analysis was used to test for the presence
of sub-markets or diagnose the extent of ·market segmentation. The degree of price-quality
integration was assessed via analysis of the parameter estimates of the hedonic functions.
One-shot data was collected on all available market samples of cowpea and rice in three
markets - Ibadan, Enugu and Nguru. These represent three major geo-cultural populations of
the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa/Fulani ethnic groups respectively in Nigeria. Component
characteristics such as seed colour, seed configuration, seed weight, grain length, grain purity,
milling quality, swelling ability, cooking time and so on were evaluated and scored for the
quantity of each characteristic induced through genetic, on-farm or off-farm