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Unit prices for all items were obtained by dividing the reported expenditure
by the number of units. Some of the unit prices were computed as weighted prices.
Following Heien and Pompelli (1989), a set of auxiliary regressions, which linked
available prices to a set of dummy variables and to expenditure, was used to impute
missing prices.
To express all unit prices in the same matrix, both food and nonfood prices
were scaled by dividing each by its corresponding mean value. In addition, all scaled
unit prices were transformed into logarithms to obtain the linear form of the
demand model.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS
This discussion emphasizes the results of the economic analysis of the rice-fish
farming systems and its impact on consumption patterns, the budget allocated for
each item, and the magnitude of elasticities.
Consumption pattern and budget share
In general, FS I farmers had higher levels of per capita consumption than FS 11
farmers. However, per capita consunlption by FS I farmers was lower than
consumption by FS I11 farmers. This difference is evidently due to the fact that the
average land holding of the farmers in FS I11 was 1.1 ha compared with an average
of 0.7 ha in the other two groups. The total per capita expenditure of the farmers in
FS I was about 33.6% higher than farmers in FS 11, but about 12.5% lower than for
farmers in FS 111.
The budget share for food items in FS I (54.6%) is a little lower than in FS I1
(56.770). However, the lowest share was in FS 111 (49.2%). The highest budget share
for nonfood items was in FS I11 (50.8 96) followed by FS I (35.4%) and FS I1
(43.3 %) (Table 13).
Therefore, the poorer farmers in FS I and FS I1 spent more than 50% of
their income on food items. On the contrary, farmers in FS 111, who had higher
incomes, spent less than 50% of their income on food consumption. Therefore, the
impact of rice-fish farming systems will be most effective if it is developed among
small-scale farmers under existing conditions.
Food expenditure
A summary of the expenditure pattern for food and the budget share of each food
item are presented in 'Table 15. In all farming system groups, the largest part of the
expenditure on food was spent on rice. The second ancl third highest shares were for