IMPORTANT CUES AND ATTRIBUTES OF RICE AMONG CONSUMERS IN EKET, AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA

Increasing the market share of Nigerian produced rice within the country without trade policy interference willrequire understanding rice attributes and cues which consumers prefer and their perception of rice from differentorigins. By eliciting consumers' ranking of attributes and cues through a survey, and applying the relativeimportance index post-survey, this study examines which attributes and cues are important to consumers. AFisher's exact test is further used to assess consumers' association of attributes and cues with rice of differentorigins –i.e., locally produced or imported. Results show that consumers are more interested in certain experienceattributes than cues and do not significantly associate their preferred attributes with rice produced in Nigeria.Despite the preference for experience attributes, informative cues, which minimize the cost of ignorance andhave the potential of boosting market shares were less important to consumers and significantly associated withimported rice. Addressing consumers' low regard for informative cues and improving on preferred attributes inlocally produced rice may foster its competitiveness without restrictive policies