DEMAND ANALYSIS OF POULTRY EGGS

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to analyze the demand for egg in Benin Metropolis, Edo state, Nigeria. A three-stage sampling procedure was used for the study. The first stage involved a simple random sampling of two Local government areas. Data for the study were collected from primary source through the use of well-structured questionnaire and interview schedule conducted among poultry egg consumers in the study area. Data collected were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Also income and price elasticity of demand for eggs were considered. Multiple regression was used to determine the effect of the identified factors on household demand for poultry eggs. The age distribution of egg consumers shows a mean age of 34 years with 63.6% which were male and about 45.8% of the egg consumer were married. The distribution of the family size of the respondents shows that 57.6% of the egg consumers have between 1 and 4 members in the family and majority 51.7% attained tertiary education. The result indicated that majority (41.5%) of the respondents do business and earned ₦106542.37 monthly and monthly income of spouse and employee were ₦35805.56 and ₦21363.64 respectively. The mean result showed that the respondents spent ₦28771.2 on food items monthly, ₦9602.6 on monthly transportation, ₦5692.9 on monthly clothing, ₦10382.1 on monthly rent, 7992.9 on education monthly, 6595.8 on energy (fuel, cooking gas, kerosene, BEDC) monthly and ₦27673.7 was saved monthly for the household. The result also showed that other household expenditures amounted ₦2351.7 monthly. The result showed that 93.2% of the respondents consume egg and majority (57.7%) of the respondents indicated that nutritional purpose was the reasons for egg consumption. The result of the regression analysis showed that Income of household head had no significant relationship on poultry egg demanded. The magnitude of price elasticity was -0.069. This number can be asserted that if the price of the eggs increases by 1%, the demand for eggs would decline by xi 6.9%. The value of the income elasticity was 0.31, which means the elasticity is inelastic, in other words that every 1% increase in the amount of household income will lead to increased demand for eggs by 31.0%. Also there was a significant relationship between price of substitutes and poultry egg demanded. Government and concerned organizations should help egg consumers with money to support their business in order to increase their earnings.