Understanding Food Expenditure Systems among Households in Nigeria: A Case Study of Nsukka Area, Enugu State

Abstract

A pragmatic understanding of demand response to prices, total expenditures, and other economic factors is quite important for developing sound policy, especially when the policy is precisely related to food consumption. The study therefore, focused on the analysis of food expenditure systems among households in Nsukka LGA, Enugu State, Nigeria. This was achieved by describing the socioeconomic characteristics of the households, describing the expenditure share of each food consumed by the households, describing the subsistence share of each food consumed by the households and determining the effects of the socio-economic characteristics on household food expenditure. Data were collected mainly from primary sources using well-structured questionnaires and personal interview methods. Seventy-eight respondents were randomly selected using multistage sampling technique. the study shows that at 1% probability level, household income had positive and significant influence on food expenditure. Subsistence share of food had a negative and significant influence on household food expenditure at 1% probability level. Therefore, it was recommended that households should be encouraged to have farms to help them reduce the amount spent on purchasing food items.