Abstract:
Currently, the Government of Ghana (GoG) is encouraging consumers to patronise more locally produced items, including local rice. It is believed that this will provide economic, environmental, and social benefits to the local economy. The current study seeks to apply social marketing using a behavioural change theory (the theory of planned behaviour) to predict and understand factors influencing behavioural intention of urban consumers to purchase the locally produced rice.
A convenience-based non-probability sampling method was used for the survey. A structured questionnaire was administered to 306 rice consumers in Accra, and the results were analysed using multiple regression. The results of the analysis reveal that all the constructs of the theory of planned behaviour (attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control) were significant in predicting intention to consume the local rice. Perceived behavioural control was the most significant or important factor, followed by subjective norm and attitude. In addition, the results indicates that consumers have a positive attitude towards the local rice, and are more willing to comply with their children and partners to consume the local rice. Perceived lack of availability and lack of cooking skills were the items that mainly contributed to perceived behavioural control. The result also revealed that despite urban consumers’ interest in the local rice, this did not necessarily translate into purchase behaviour. Lack of availability and difficulty in cooking the local rice were found to be the key barriers to the purchase of the local rice. Social marketers in Ghana should work towards increasing the availability of the local rice; encourage proper merchandising and labelling of the local rice in shops and supermarkets to encourage increased levels of purchase behaviour from the urban consumer. Interventions should be designed to improve the cooking skills of the consumers. Children and partners rather than government officials should be used in promoting the made in Ghana rice.
The study is limited to the extent that only one local product (local rice) was studied in Accra. Future researchers should therefore, consider the application of social marketing techniques to other local products. Only consumers in Accra were interviewed, and therefore, not representative of all consumers in Ghana. It is therefore recommended that, future research should cover consumers from other urban centres to allow for an effective generalisation of the findings. Qualitative research is also needed to unearth other factors that may hinder the consumption of the local rice.
