The study was conducted in Adamawa State, Nigeria between June to November, 2019. The objective of the study was to investigate attributes which rice consumers consider when purchasing a particular type of rice. Specifically, it identifies attributes which local and imported rice consumers consider when choosing a particular rice type and examine the level of significant of these attributes in influencing choice of rice consumed in the area. The population of the study involved all the households in Adamawa State. However, the research used a sample size of 128 House Hold Heads (HHHs) for the work. Primary data was generated from the respondents through a well-structured questionnaire; however, only 120 questionnaires were retrieved and successfully used to accomplish the objective of the study. Logit regression and ordinary least square models were used to analyzed the data. The results revealed that consumers consider price of rice, swelling capacity, odor, suitability of recipe, cooking duration, taste, shape, and cleanness of a particular rice grain as an attribute before choosing a rice type as this was explained by pseudo R 2 0.928 obtained from the logit model. The study concludes that, rice attributes such as swelling capacity, suitability of recipe, cleanliness, grain shape, cooking duration and aroma as well as taste significantly had effects in deciding type of rice to consume by rice consumers in Adamawa State as at the period of study. The study recommends that, any rice to be marketed in the area must be clean and free from unpleasant odor, have good shape, good swelling capacity, taste and suitable for preparation of different recipe. This can be achieved through improvement in research and use of modern processing technologies for both production and processing of rice.

The study was conducted in Adamawa state Nigeria. The objective was to analyze consumers' preference between local and imported rice in the area. A sample of 128 House Holds Heads (HHHS), were drawn using multi-stages, purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Primary data was generated using structured questionnaire administered to 128 HHHs. However, only 120 were retrieved and subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics includes frequency count, percentages and means while chisquare analysis was used to test the hypothesis of the study which was stated in a null form, that local rice is better than the imported rice based on certain attributes such as price, swelling capacity, taste, cleanliness, cooking duration, color, odor, grain shape and in the preparation of different recipe. The results revealed that, majority (66.66%), of the consumers prefer local rice based on it lower price and taste respectively while majority (83.34%), (75, 00%) and (66.66%) agreed that imported rice is better in terms of cleanliness, pleasant odor and grain shape. Similarly, rice consumers concur (50%) and (50%) on the cooking duration attributes of both local and imported rice respectively in the area. The study therefore, concluded that, imported rice is better than the local rice based on the percentages and chisquare result which rejected, the null hypothesis, and accepted the alternate ( 2 cal is greater than 2 tab at probability level ( alpha) p= (0.05 ) and (r -1)(c -1) degree of freedom. It is recommended that local rice should be improved in respect to it cleanliness, odor and grain shape which are the attributes by which foreign rice is considered better from this study for it to be competitive at national and international market scenes. This could be achieved through improvement in research and adoption of improved production and processing technologies.

The study analyzed socioeconomic characteristics of rice consumers in Adamawa State Nigeria. The population of the study involved all the households in Adamawa State. However, the research used a sample size of 128 House Hold Heads (HHHs) for the work. Primary data was generated from the respondents through a well-structured questionnaire, but only 120 questionnaires were retrieved and successfully analyzed to accomplish the study. Descriptive statistics, frequencies and percentages were used to describe the socio-economic characteristics of rice consumers in the state. The result revealed that, majority (62.5%) of the respondents are males, majority (39.1%) aged between 31-40 years and majority (87.5%) were married, majority (50.83%) attended post-secondary education, majority (37.5%) had 6-10 members in their household and majority (41.7%) are engaged in business as major source of livelihood. It also showed that majority (40%) earned at least N50, 000 monthly. Similarly, majority (62.5%) spent N20, 000 monthly on rice. It also revealed that most of the respondents consumed rice on daily basis and purchased up to 25kg per month. The paper reveals that, rice consumers in the area were younger, married, had moderate family size, they are literate, and majority belong to business class and earning moderate income. The study therefore concludes that rice consumption is promising in the area evident from the consumer's income and monthly expenditure on rice. Despite the great demand potential for rice in the area, it is recommended that, sensitization campaigns on improve patronage of home grown and processed rice will go a long way in increasing the demand for domestic rice.