Manyong delivery vit a

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Consumer Acceptance of Biofortified

Maize in Rural Zambia:

Does Color Matter?

J.V. Meenakshi, A. Banerji, Victor M. Manyong,

Keith Tomlins, Priscilla Hamukwala, Rodah Zulu,

and Catherine Mungoma

Biofortification, First Global Conference, Nov 9-11, 2010, Washington D.C.

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Problem of malnutrition

• The diets of millions of people in SSA are deficient in essential

micro- (vitamins, minerals) and macro- (protein, energy, fatty acids)

nutrients contributing to

Poor health, weak immune system, stunted growth

Poor cognitive development

Increased incidence of kwashiorkor, anaemia and corneal

blindness

Susceptibility to infectious diseases

• 100 million Africans are predisposed to high risk of visual

impairment and blindness due to vitamin A deficiency (African

Union, 2005)

• 33 million pre-school age children in Africa are deficient in vitamin A

20-24% of child mortality from diarrhoea, measles and malaria

3% mortality form infectious diseases

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1. Supplementation (Medical approach)

Comparatively expensive and requires continued

financing over time

2. Food fortification (Industrial approach)

Requires access to effective markets and healthcare

systems to monitor nutrient levels

3. Biofortification (Agronomic approach)

Requires improving the nutritive value of staple food

crops

Approaches to mitigate

micronutrient malnutrition

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Context of this Study

• Plant breeders have identified maize

varieties that can have up to 15 ppm

beta carotene. Varieties with 8 ppm are

already in the pipeline.

• For an adult consuming 400 grams of

maize every day, an addition of 15 ppm

beta carotene would translate into an

increase of 400 x 15 12 x 0.5 = 250

RAE. This is about 50% of the

estimated average requirements of an

adult woman of 500 RAE.

• But given the history of yellow

maize, will a provitamin A orange

maize be accepted by consumers?

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Objectives of the Study

• Evaluate consumer acceptance of orange maize using

willingness to pay and consumer acceptance measures

in the absence of any nutrition campaign, and quantify

the magnitude of any premium or discount relative to

white maize

• Examine the impact of the provision of nutrition

information, comparing the use of radio messages with

that of community leaders

• Examine whether novelty effects significantly influence

premiums/discounts by comparing home use testing

(HUT) with central location testing (CLT)

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Analyzing Consumer Acceptance

• Food science approaches: taste tests to determine

which product the consumer prefers and to produce

consumers acceptance measures (the Coke versus

Pepsi test)

• Economics approaches: purchase decisions depend on

preferences as well as prices (utility). A consumer may

prefer Coke to Pepsi if both are selling at the same price,

but may choose to buy Pepsi if it is cheaper than Coke

say by at least 10 percent

=Economists attempt to quantify when such switches

may occur by eliciting willingness to pay (WTP)

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Nutrition Information

• Message developed in collaboration with Zambian

nutritionists (English and translated in 3 local languages

– Bemba, Lenje, and Tonga)

• Simulated radio (7 minute) program produced by Zambia

National Broadcasting Corporation

• Two channels for the nutrition information:

– Radio messages: are easier to control and can reach

large populations at relatively low cost, but are

‗anonymous.‘

– Community leaders (and extension workers) are likely

to be more effective in bringing about behaviour

change, but quality control and costs are issues.

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Central Location Testing (CLT)

and Home Use Testing (HUT)

• CLT—consumers taste nshima made from white orange

and yellow maize (in random order) and are asked to

evaluate the three types of maize in terms of consumer

acceptance and WTP. Process takes about 30 minutes

per respondent and overall four days.

• HUT—consumers given flour made from white, orange

and yellow maize (sequentially and in random order) and

asked to use according to usual household recipes for a

few days. After this they are asked to evaluate the three

in terms of consumer acceptance and WTP. Idea is to

account for ‗novelty‘ value that may dominate consumer

rankings in CLT. Process takes nearly 10 days and is

more expensive.

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Home use

testing (279 hh)

Central location

testing (208 hh)

Without nutrition information;

“control” 103 hh

With nutrition information provided

through simulated radio 89 hh

With nutrition information provided by

community leaders 87hh

Without nutrition information;

“control” 107 hh

With nutrition information provided

through simulated radio 101 hh

Study Design and Sample Size

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Ethics

• This research involved a number of ethical concerns

being:

– Invasive to the body (ingestion of food)

– Interviewing vulnerable people

– Interviewing children under the age of 18 years

• Therefore, before the research was undertaken, the

methodology was evaluated by the Research Ethics

Committees of the Universities of Zambia, Zambia and

Greenwich, UK. Clearance was given to undertake the

research.

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Normative Analyses

• Consumer acceptability: ordinal logistic regression wasused to analyze factors affecting the consumer scoresusing hedonic scales (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1corresponding to ―dislike very much‖ and 5corresponding to ―like very much‖ following Meullenet etal. (2007).

• WTP: the conditional logit model was used to estimate

the premia following Campbell et al. (2006) and

McFadden (1974).

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The Study Districts

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Selected Characteristics of the Sample

HUT CLT

Sample size (households v individuals) 279 208

% reporting maize consumption every day 98 100

% reporting nshima consumption every day 97 100

% reporting sale of maize 52 76

% reporting purchase of maize for consumption 62 63

% maize area under hybrids 57 67

% reporting receiving information about maize

cultivation

Of these, those who received from public

extension

49

65

51

55

% reporting ownership of a radio 57 71

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Acceptability and

Message Channel

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Acceptability and Approach

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Acceptability and District

From CLT (=Ethnic Group)

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Ordinal logistic regression:

Selected Results

HUT CLT

Maize=yellow -1.016 -1.166

Maize=orange 0.122 0.022

Gender 0.017 -0.302

Age 0.007 0.003

Assets 0.423 0.134

Nutrition message=Radio 0.468 -0.315

Nutrition message=Community leaders 0.803 -

[Maize=yellow]*[Nutrition message=Radio] 0.468 0.045

[Maize=orange]*[Nutrition message=Radio] 0.803 0.047

[Maize=yellow]*[Nutrition message=C. leaders] 0.303 -

[Maize=orange]*[Nutrition message=C. leaders] 0.526 -

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Estimated Premia(as percent of WTP for white maize)

Orange

relative

to

white

Yellow

relative

to white

Home Use Testing

No information 5 -18**

Information from Radio 15** -21**

Information from Community Leaders 17* -21**

Central Location Testing

No information 7 -19**

Information from Radio 32** -11

** at 5%; * at 10%

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Summary of Results

Acceptability of orange=white > yellow

Acceptability is enhanced with nutrition message

No much difference in modes used for nutrition

message although high magnitude for C. leaders

CLT and HUT lead to almost similar results

Factors influencing: orange+, age+/-, nutr. info+,

gender (women)+; assets+, time for eating+/-;

form+/-;

Premium of 15% to 32% of orange maize relative

to white maize; yellow maize suffers -18% to -21%

of discount compared to white maize

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Implications/Lessons

• Consumers exhibit low acceptance of yellow maize. Yellow

maize is least preferred in all settings

• There is no difference in consumer acceptance of orange

and white maize. The negative connotation of yellow

maize does not spill over to orange maize, probably

because the new maize varieties also meet consumers

food preferences (taste, texture, appearance, etc.)

• The provision of nutrition information translates into

much greater acceptance of orange maize (and a

premium on its price)

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• There is no difference in the acceptance and

premium for orange maize between information

received from radio messages and those received

from community leaders, although a bit higher for

the latter.

• CLT does not translate into lower willingness to pay

estimates; and although results are not strictly

comparable, novelty effects appear not to matter.

Further studies do not need to invest in costly HUT

Implications/Lessons (Cont.)

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In addition to strategies derived from this study others that

are important for large scale delivery and success of

biofortified maize are:

• Good agronomic traits: high yield, resistance to pests

and diseases, tolerance/adaptation to drought;

• Efficient extension systems in Zambia: better

integration of health care and agric extension systems at

the grass roots levels;

• Seed industry, millers and non-profit development

partners (FOs, NGOs.) to be brought into the delivery

strategies and mechanisms as earlier as possible;

• Urban poor also deserve attention, therefore they need

be consulted as well.

Ways Forward

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THANK YOU FOR

YOUR ATTENTION