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The Lao Journal of Agriculture and Forestry, No. 04

10 January - June 2002

Vegetable Consumption in an Urban Setting of Lao PDR

B. Souvimonh1, G..E. Potutan2 , R.J. Holmer2 and W.H. Schnitzler3

Abstract

Vegetables are an issue of concern in many Asian cities including big cities in the LaoPDR, because there is a large gap between the quantity produced and the necessary requirementfor good health. To ensure an adequate micronutrient supply, the minimum daily intakerrecommended by FAO is 200 grams of vegetables. Vegetables have advantages, among theseare good nutritional status as well as improving health and human development.

The research aimed at exploring the consumption patterns of people in Vientiane andassessing factors associating with vegetable consumption.

The survey was carried out in urban and peri-urban districts of Vientiane City usinginterviews among 100 vegetable growers, 100 venders, and 100 consumers who were chosenat random systematic sampling system from 3 market premises in 3 districts. Data wereencoded and analyzed by means of MINITAB 12.0 software.

The research found that almost all consumers avail of vegetable from public market(68%), 30% from their own farm, 1% from supermarket and 1% from peddler.Types of vegetable commonly consumed are bell pepper, eggplant, kangkong, onion, cucumber,garlic, lettuce, tomato, papaya, cabbage, beans, ginger, and cauliflower. At peak productionseason consumer spent for vegetable about 6600 - 8600 kip\week. People eat vegetable raw,cooked, and processed as salad, coleslaw, soup and saute. Criteria for making decision beforebuying vegetable are freshness, texture, price, size, and color. Vegetable is unanimously placedsecond after rice in daily meal : breakfast, lunch and dinner.

1 Haddokkeo Horticulture Research Center, Lao PDR2 Xavier University College of Agriculture, Peri-urban Vegetable Production Project (PUVeP), 9000 Cagayan de Oro, Philippines3 Institute for Vegetable Science, TU Munchen-Weihenstephan, Freising, Germany



Thatluang Market, and Sikhay Market. Thepresidents of the vendors associations wereapproached for their members’ names.Vendors who were not members of anyassociation were individually approached.From the list, systematic random sampling wasemployed. Every 3rd ( i.e., 6th, 9th, 12th, etc.)name was selected as respondent. Consumerswere randomly sampled from the differentvillages of the following districts Sikhotabong,Hatxayfong, and Saysettha.

The questionnaire comprised seven-teen blocks namely : identification; personaldata; household migration and mobility pattern;credit and savings; health status; genderrelations; food consumption pattern; qualitycriteria; farming/gardening practices; fertilizeruse; pesticide use; integrated petsmanagement; crop rotation; irrigation; laborinputs; marketing and; household wastedisposal. From the completed questionnaire,the data were transferred to the coding sheets.These data were then encoded in the computerwith the use of MINITAB 12.0 Software.Descriptive statistics (i.e., frequency,percentage, and mean ) was applied in thedata analysis. This article specifically analyzesthose that pertain to vegetable consumption.

Results

Respondents reported that rice ( 99%)and vegetables are frequently consumed inmost cases at breakfast, lunch and dinner(Table 1) Usually food\vegetables areobtained from purchasing in cash (99%), sharefrom farm produce

Introduction

In Asian cities, the minimum dailyrequirement for vegetable intake is 200 gramsper capita (AVRDC 1995), whereas in the LaoPDR daily supply / consumption per head isaround 50 grams (MAF, 1999). Compared toLatin American cities (e.g. Cuba), whereminimum requirement is much higher, about300 grams per capita per day, most Asiancities do not meet the minimum requirement (PUVeP 1998 ). This poses greater challengeto urban agriculture advocates to furtherstrengthen vegetable consumption in the urbanareas. The advantages of increased vegetableintake are manifolds. Among these are betternutritional status as well as better health andhuman development (Richter 1995). Thisarticle aims to achieve two objectives. First,to describe the consumption patterns of peoplein the Vientiane. Second, to assess factorsassociated with vegetable consumption.

Methodology

A survey was conducted in the urbanand peri-urban districts of Vientiane Cityamong 100 vegetable growers, 100 vendors,and 100 consumers during the period June 20- July 19, 1998. A list of vegetable farmerswas obtained from the Agricultural StatisticsOffice of Vientiane. From the list, systematicrandom sampling was employed. Every 3 rd(i.e 6th, 9th, 12th, etc.) name was selected asrespondent. The vegetable vendors weresampled from the major markets in VientianeCity. Namely, Thongkankham Market,



Table 1 : Foods consumed during breakfast, lunch and dinner



(7%), and credit (1%). When asked for theirpreference where to obtain vegetables 98%mentioned public market, 30% from their ownfarm, 6% direct from other farmers’s farm,1% from supermarket, and 1% from peddlers( Table 2). The type of vegetables that arecommonly consumed are bell pepper (95%),eggplant (93%), kangkong (80%), onion(72%), cucumber (71%), garlic (68%), lettuce( 65%), tomato (61%), papaya (51%), cabbage(50%), pechay (49%), beans (40%), ginger(39%), and cauliflower (38%) (Table 3). Thereare various reasons why respondents eatvegetables. Among the reasons mentioned arevegetables beind tasty (68%), high nutritionalvalue (45%), readily available (37%),affordable (35%), and could help maintaingood body shape (20%) ( Table 4).

Respondents are quite satisfied withthe quality of vegetables they got fromdifferent sources. Ninety nine percent (99%)reported that they usually obtained theirvegetables fresh from their sources and 55%said these are tarnish-free. The amount spentfor vegetable per week varies from type ofrespondents. Farmers spents about 6,600 kip/week (1 US$ = 4,000 kip as of March 1998),vendors about 8,360 kip\week, and consumersabout 9,720 kip/week. In average, the amountthey spent per week for vegetable is 8,320kip.

As to how the respondent want to eatvegetables, 56% want it either raw, cookedor processed, 24% want it cooked or process-ed only, 7% want it cooked only, 6% want itprocessed only and 3% want it either raw orprocessed (Table 5)

As to the specific methods of preparingvegetables, they want it as salad (63%), ascoleslaw (17%), soup (.7%), and saute (.7%).The sources of information in perparingvegetables are own initiative (66 %), mother(12%), friends (11%) neighbors (9%),television (1%), recipe book (.7%), and radio(.3%). There are eight selected vegetablesthat the peri-urban vegetable porject (P UVeP)has particular interest. Respondents wereasked to recall which of these vegetables theyconsumed during the last the 30 days (fromthe time the survey was administered) and toestimate the amount (in kilogram) consumedby the family. With regard to consumption,responses are bell pepper (99%), eggplant(98%), tomato (96%), papaya (90%), headcabbage (50%),cauliflower (44%), yam bean(14%) and soybean (8%). In terms of amounteaten, response ranges from 1.6 kg for bellpepper to 7.4 for yam bean. Based on thesefigures, the estimated consumption ofvegetables per capita per day is less then 100grams. More detailed questions were askedabout quality prefernce of selected veg-etables. In terms of size, texture, color andmaturity, some common responses are appar-ent. For instance in bell pepper, respondentswant it small for size (59%), medium firm fortexture (41%), red for color (70%), and ripefor maturity (36%) (Table 6). In obtainningthese vegetables, the following are consideredfreshness (71%), texture (13%), price (8%),size (3%) and color (1%)(Table 7). To dete-rmine the quality of vegetables the responden-ts live to obtain, three different pictures of tom-atoes were presented during



Table 2 : Most preferred place in buying vegetables

Table 3 : Commonly consumed vegetables by the household in the past 6 months



Table 4 : Reasouns of eating vegetables

Table 5 : Usual means of vegetable consumption



Tabl

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: Qua

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Table 7 : First thibg considered in purchasing vegetable

Table 8 : Quality preference

Picture 1: Infesed pesticied free vegetablesPicture 2: Non- infested vegetables treated with pesticide at the same selling price

with Picture 1Picture 3: Non- infested pesticide free vegetables sold with price 20 percent higher

than Picture 1 and Picture 2



the interview. Picture 1 showed sets oftomatoes that were produced free frompesticides and had a slight damage. Picture 2showed set of tomatoes that were chemicallygrown and were free from spots (this waslabeled with the same price as tomatoespresented in Picture 1). Picture 3 showed anideal type of tomatoes. These were organicallygrown and spotfree. However, the price was20% higher than those sets of tomatoespresented in Picture 1 and Picture 2. Thepreference of most respondents (56%) isPicture 2 (Table 8). They want cheap tomato,applied with pesticides, and free from spots.It is unlikely for the consumers to consumevegetables that are fertilized with human feces,as 91% mentioned they would never eatvegetables grown this way (Table 9).

Discussion

It is apparent from the results thatpeople in the urban areas of Vientiane recogn-ize the importance of vegetables.

However, despite this favorable attitude tovegetable consumption, actual data show thatvegetable intake is indeed very low. Factorsthat may help explain this result can be bothmethodological and practical. As regards themethodology, it is possible that the estimatedrate of consumption is understated becausethe survey questionnaire is limited to only eightselected types of vegetables. This means thatother vegetables consumed are not reflectedin the estimate. However, if there may be somedifference in the estimate, it could only beslight because other findings (KURDI 1998)seem to support the survey results. The morepractical reason for minimum vegetable intakein the urban setting of Vientaine may be attri-buted to fsctors such as supply, amount, andquality of vegetables.The supply of vegetables in Vientiane isseasonal (Potutan 1999). There are certainseasons where vegetables are abundant andthere are seasons where vegetables are limitedTo initially address this constraint, the PUVePis doing experiments

Table 9 : Consumption of vegetable fertilized with human feces



on crop improvement (through breeding) toproduce crops that can grow year-round in atropical lowland environment. The amount ofvegetable can also be considered as directdeterminant to consumption. On average,each family in Vientiane spends about 30%of their income on purch- ase of vegetables.This figure indicates that the most affordablefood in the city is vegetable However, despiteits affordability, consumption of the same islimited because aside from its seasonal supply,income of most family is very low to buy morevegetables. Another consider-ation in lookingat the pattern of consumption is the quality ofvegetables. Respondents normally want topurchase fresh vegetables with some otherconsiderations such as the texture, size, color,and price. However, there is no indicationwhether consumers have had actuallyobtained the vegetable based on theirstandards. It is recommended that detailedstudy on this aera may be explored.

References

Asian Vegetable Research and DevelopmentCenter (AVRDC) 1995. Peri-urbanVegetable Production in HoChi MinhCity, Vietnam. AVRDC PublicationNumber 95-442. Taipei.

KURDI and AVRDC. 1998. Peri-Urban Veg-etable Production in the Asia PacificRegion for the 21 st Century. Confer-ence held in Bangkok, 28 Septemberto 1 October 1998.

Peri-Urban Vegetable Project(PUVeP).1998Socioeconomic Surveys on VegetableProduction, Consumption andMarketing in three Southeast AsianCities (unpublished).

Permanent Secretary Office, Ministry of Agr-culture and Forestry (MAF), 1999.Agriculture Statistics of the Lao PDRStatistics division.

Potutan, Gerald E., et. al. 1999. The PresentStatus of vegetable consumption, Pro-duction, and Marketing in Vientiane,Lao PDR (unpublished).

Richter J., Schnitzler W. H. Gura, S (eds).1995. Vegetable Production in Periu-rban Areas in the Tropics and Subtr-opics - food, Income and Quality ofLife. Proceeding of an InternationalWorkshop. German Foundation forInternational Development, Councilfor Tropical and Subtropical Agricult-ural Research. ZEL, FeldafingZschortau.

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