Analysis of the availability and accessibility of consumer to locally made rice in Abuja municipal area council, Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria

Nigeria, a country where rice has become one of the most important staple food consumed by almost everyone, rice imports had affected domestic production and patronage of Nigeria’s local rice that had resulted in the decreased demand and consumption of local rice. The study therefore, analyzed the availability and accessibility of local rice in Abuja Municipal Area council FCT Nigeria. Primary data were collected from randomly sampled 110 respondents in 11 selected wards in the area council using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics analyses were used in the analysis of factors limiting the consumption of locally produced rice and the test of hypothesis.
Results reveal the modal age of 31-40years, majorities were females (60.0%), most of the respondents were married (69.1%), and respondents are quite educated with 46.4% possessing tertiary education. Most of the respondents are civil servants with 44.5%), household size is at an average of 6-10 individuals while most of the respondents earned between ₦50,000 and ₦100,000 monthly. The result indicates that the respondents had easy access to local rice and it is well available to them. Factor analysis results loaded four factors that are renamed to poor physical features, none, poor compositional features and poor aroma. The logit regression reveals income significantly influenced the access to local rice in the study area. The study, therefore, recommends that the government should pay more attention to rice processing to ensure good quality of local rice grain, in terms of cleanliness and making it free from foreign materials.