Value-Added Strategies and Consumer’s Preference For Locally Produced Rice In Nigeria
Vol.3 Issue 1
Value-added strategies were discovered as the tools or the engine that drives consumer’s preference for local rice. The general objective was to determine the effect of value added strategies on consumer’s preference for locally produced rice in Nigeria. The study population was made up of rice consumers in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states. Krejcie & Morgan statistical table was used to ascertain the sample size of 384 respondents and they were selected using multi-stage sampling method. The statistical tools used include; simple percentage, mean, frequency and multiple regression analysis. The findings showed that all variables examined such as form value-added strategy, brand value-added strategy, and place value-added strategy were significant and positive factors that affect consumer’s preference for rice production in Nigeria. And that the effect is strongest with form value added strategy, followed by place value added strategy, and brand value added strategy respectively. The study concluded that any rice production company that embarked on post-harvest technologies and activities (value-added strategies) could create consumer’s preference for local rice. The study therefore recommends among other things; that local rice production in Nigeria should strive to improve in the areas such as protein coating, de-stoning, de-strigaring, whitening, branding, packaging, labeling, storage, and transportation in order to create consumers’ preferences. Moreover, local rice production in commercial quantity is not only one man’s effort and resources to embark upon in order to survive in the long run; rather it is a business of partnerships and conglomeration. Therefore government, private companies and funder agencies should support handicap rice production businesses in Nigeria to go into value addition creation so that consumers would shift to prefer local rice products, which in turn will command premium price as well as growth and development in our national economy (GDP.
Keywords: value added strategy, form value added strategy, brand value added strategy, place value added strategy, and consumer’s preference.
