ABSTRACT
Fish and Meat are important constituents of the Nigerian diet capable of meeting the protein requirements for the Nigerian people. Unfortunately, its consumption does not meet the level required to cause a dramatic change in the nutrition level of the average Nigerian. This study examined the preference of households among fish and meat consumers in Oredo Local Government Area. The study specifically described the socio-economic characteristics of the fish and meat consumers, the consumption/expenditure pattern of the consumers, estimated the budget shares of fish and meat relative to other commodities, and tested the rationality of utility maximization of the consumers in the study area.
A two-stage sampling procedure was used involving a purposive selection of 4 communities from the study area, followed by simple random sampling of households in the study area. Data were collected from 94 fish and meat consumers using structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.
The results of the descriptive statistics showed that 5.32% of the meat and fish consumers were male while 94.68% were female. 40.43% of the respondents fell within the ages of 30-40, 35.11% fell within the ages of 41-50, while 24.47% of the respondents were above 50. The modal class of household size was found to be 1-5 with a mean household size of 5.03. The consumption pattern showed that expenditure was higher on non-food items before the covid-19, but higher on food items during the covid-19. Budget share on protein was highest before and during the covid-19. Among the food budget share on beef was highest before the covid-19 and during the Covid-19. The inferential statistics showed that there was significant difference between the share expenditure on food before and during the Covid-19 (t = -14.7276, p = 0.0000), but there was a significant different between the share expenditure of non-food items before and during the Covid-19 (t= -1.5341, p = 0.1285). The results of the rationality test showed that the strong, weak and generalized axioms of revealed were violated at Afriat Efficiency Index of 1 before the Covid-19. However there were no violations at Afriat Efficiency Index of 0.42. Also, during the Covid-19, the weak, strong and generalized axioms were violated at Affriat Efficiency Index of 1, but were not violated at Affriat Efficiency Levels of 0.80.
