Consumer preferences for rice in Africa.

294 (eds M.C.S. Wopereis et al.) Africa. Therefore, agricultural policies have mainly favoured cheap imports of food, rather than local food production. The result is that African policy makers now face the effects of the historical urban bias in rice markets. Specifically, urban consumers in Africa have developed a marked preference for imported rice and associated purchasing and eating habits (Demont et al., 2013b). In the early 1980s, agricultural economists warned that ‘the problem of consumer tastes and responsiveness to the locally grown varieties which would replace rice imports’ was largely ignored in the debate on the policy and economics of rice in West Africa (Pearson et al., 1981; Ross, 1983). The same criticism is raised in rice breeding, which has ‘not incorporated desirable consumption attributes and non-yield production traits into new varieties’ (Dalton, 2004, p. 149). More recently, USAID reiterated this call for demand-focused research in its West Africa rice value-chain report, arguing that ‘support for research into consumer demand and preferences for local rice’ should be prioritized (USAID, 2009a, p. iii). This chapter discusses the situation of rice in Africa from a consumer-behaviour perspective. Consumer behaviour is defined as ‘those actions directly involved in obtaining, consuming, Introduction