Rural resident household food consumption patterns in the Ganzhou district of Zhangye city: an analysis based on ELES Model

Demand for food plays an important role in the adjustment of prices for agricultural products and for adjusting agricultural structure. By using the extended linear expenditure system (ELES), we analyzed the food consumption structure of rural residents in the Ganzhou district of Zhangye city, and determined the basic food-consumption demand, the marginal propensity of consumption, the income elasticities of demand, and the own-price and cross-price elasticities of local rural residents, all of which illustrate the influencing factors on food consumption of rural residents and for forecasting the food-consumption structure. Those analyses show the following: the rural residents' expenditure on household basic food consumption reaches about 7,050.35 Yuan; the marginal propensities of consumption of fruits and vegetables are relatively high (0.062 and 0.106, respectively), followed by meat (0.044); the demands for various foods are increasing as income increases, with the largest income elasticity of demand corresponding to fruits (1.354) and the lowest to cereal (0.310); fruits and vegetables have relatively high own-price elasticities (respectively -0.879 and -0.442), with the cereal having the lowest one (-0.184). An increase in cereal prices would greatly affect demand for other products; with the rising size of rural households, the consumption for meat is decreasing whereas it is increasing for cereal. The improvement of household education levels will lead to the increase of fruit consumption (E = 0.297), which indicates that people will pay more attention to diet and nutrition structure with the improvement of education. Further, although the amount of cereal expenditure is continually growing, the share will be declining with the increase of household income in 2006-2012. For all these reasons, therefore, the government should encourage the cultivation of economic crops and guide the development of stockbreeding to ensure the stability of cereal output. In order to attain the balance between supply and demand, it is important to rationally adjust the prices of fruits and vegetables on the basis of the stable price of cereal.