Consumers’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Local and Imported Maize in South Sudan

This paper examines consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards local and imported maize. A consumer survey was conducted with 160 consumers in four administrative areas in Juba, South Sudan. Descriptive statistics were used to draw conclusions on consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards different maize attributes. Results reveal that consumers prefer local to imported maize and were mainly price conscious when shopping. Consumers have the highest concern towards health and employ the political boundary to define local maize. Purchasers of local maize trust that local maize were good tasting, attractive, nutritious and have less chemicals while non-purchasers accept that lack of variety and unavailability of local maize were the main barriers to buying local maize. When looking at the reasons, which could persuade consumers to buy local maize, the purchasers perceive more readily available and evidence of quality of local maize while their counterparts perceive wide range of local maize and more readily available consumers. Thus, greater availability and a wider variety of local maize at open markets can reach the potential consumers interested in local maize.