Food consumption behavior : rural Sierra Leone and Kano State, Nigeria

The authors applied both single equation regressions and household-firm systems analysis to data collected during 1974-75 in Sierra Leone and Kano State, Nigeria. The first five chapters deal with Sierra Leone and cover estimating food consumption, food consumption patterns, single-equation regressions, systems estimation of the household-firm model, and food flows and simulations. The sixth chapter covers the Kano State village data and a final chapter details conclusions. Results show clearly that semi-subsistence households respond to economic factors. For most foods, consumption rises as household expenditures increase. Cassava may be an exception in Sierra Leone; sorghum is an exception for over half of the households in the Kano State sample. The authors suggest that efforts to improve the nutritional status of low-expenditure households should emphasize increased production of foods, such as cowpeas, that people wish to eat more of as their income increases. A discussion of data requirements for conducting similar analyses is appended.