Abstract

The Nigerian soils are well adapted to the production of rice. In all the ecological zones of the country, rice production is well entrenched. Despite their favourable soil and ecological conditions for rice production, Nigerians still spend substantial proportions of their earnings on imported rice. Why? It is against this backdrop that this study was carried out in Ondo State, Nigeria to investigate the consumers’ attitude towards local rice. Two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were selected for the study and from each, two communities were randomly selected. Five wards from each community were selected, from where five respondents per ward were interviewed. The results showed that 93% of the respondents consumed local rice but only 26% consumed more of local rice than the imported. Also, 42% of the respondents consumed local rice for its relative cheaper price in addition, 80% of the respondents purchased their rice from the market while 82% spent less than 24% of their income on rice consumption. The attitude of the respondents from the study showed that, they were indifferent in their preference of local rice to imported rice, but they showed unfavourable attitudes towards importation of rice at the expense of the locally produced one given the favourable natural resources at the nation’s disposal. It was recommended that, since the people desired an improvement in the production of local rice, the improvement would likely be in the area of processing which has much to be desired compared with the imported in terms of neatness and attractiveness, efforts must therefore, be made to make  the rice more attractive. This can be accomplished by adopting the use of much improved technology.

Key words: Consumers, attitude, rice, consumption, production.