Analysis of the Rice Value Chain in East Timor—The Consumers’ Perspective

Abstract

The consumer is an important factor to measure the performance of the rice agri-food value chain in East Timor. The purpose of this work is to identify the links in the rice chain, as well as to do the consumers' characterization, along with their segments. The methodologies used to represent the functioning of consumer preferences are cluster analysis, applied the K-Mean method, qualitative nature, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and regression analysis. It was constituted a sample of 240 rice consumers in the county of Dili, capital of East Timor, and the questionnaire was conducted in the presence of the researcher. As consumers become more aware and experience higher purchasing standards, failure to consider their concerns will affect the profit of value chain participants, many of whom will need to update their practices. The result of KMO statistic, 0.781, shows that the quality of the analysis is good and the null hypothesis of Bartlett's test of sphericity was rejected. It was found the existence of two components, with the first having a greater weight of variables in relation to distance, transportation and availability, while the second component has a greater weight on variables related to quality, human benefit and healthy living. The first component was considered as Access and the second as Quality. Regarding the segmentation of consumers, we proceeded to create two distinct groups of rice consumers. Group I, composed of 171 individuals, and a Group II, with 69 individuals. Both groups considered rice to be the key food element, particularly important for the Timorese population.