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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 was
used to analyze factors affecting the consumer scores
using hedonic scales (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1
corresponding to ―dislike very much‖ and 5
corresponding to ―like very much‖ following Meullenet et
al. (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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