Beyond the Bottle: Factors Affecting Adoption of Liquid Urine Fertilizer Among Smallholder Farmers in Southern Malawi

Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture: The need for affordable and sustainable soil fertility solutions is growing in sub-Saharan Africa. This has led to renewed interest in human-derived organic inputs, such as urine fertiliser. This blog post explores the determinants of awareness, adoption, and intensity of urine fertiliser use among smallholder farmers in Southern Malawi.

Research Overview: A study was conducted involving 251 smallholder farmers. All respondents were members of at least one organised farmer group. This highlights the strong institutional embeddedness of rural agriculture in the region.

Descriptive results indicated that 46% of farmers were aware of urine fertiliser, while 32% had applied it. The first hurdle revealed that education and extension contact significantly enhanced awareness. However, concerns about odour reduced awareness levels.

Factors Influencing Adoption: Conditional awareness, extension contact, and farm size positively influenced the adoption of urine fertiliser. On the other hand, cost perceptions and odour concerns acted as major deterrents. The Inverse Mills Ratio (IMR) was negative and significant. This confirmed a selection bias between awareness and adoption. In the third hurdle, the intensity of use increased with extension contact, farm size, and poultry ownership. However, it declined with odour concerns.

These findings demonstrate that social organisation facilitates information access. However, actual uptake and continued use depend on effective extension engagement, resource endowment, and perception management.

Policy Recommendations: To enhance the adoption of urine fertiliser, policy actions should prioritise:

1. Demonstration-Based Learning: Farmers should be provided with practical demonstrations of urine fertiliser application. This can help alleviate concerns and improve understanding.

2. Odour-Mitigation Strategies: Addressing the odour issue is crucial. Strategies should be developed to manage and reduce odour concerns associated with urine fertiliser.

3. Integration into Circular Bioeconomy Frameworks: Urine fertiliser should be integrated into circular bioeconomy frameworks that link sanitation and agriculture. This can create a more sustainable agricultural practice.

   
   

Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of education and extension services in promoting the adoption of urine fertiliser among smallholder farmers. While awareness exists, actual use is influenced by various factors, including perceptions and resource availability. By focusing on demonstration-based learning and addressing concerns, stakeholders can improve the uptake of urine fertiliser. This will contribute to sustainable agricultural practices in Southern Malawi.

Keywords: Circular Bioeconomy, extension services, Smallholder farmers, sustainable agriculture, triple-hurdle model, Urine fertiliser adoption

Citation: Nyengere J, Mzumara T, Tholo H, Njala AL, Chisenga C, Nindi-Chigwe T, Mwase W, Mataka S, Abdulrahman OL, Falola-Olasunkanmi JA, Wainaina RW, Ndosi J, Fanyin-Martin A, Tham-Agyekum EK, Kapinga A, Lefadola BP, Shamala LF, Ndimbo GK, Cheboi JJ, Chisale M and Masuku P (2026) Beyond the bottle: factors affecting adoption of liquid urine fertilizer among smallholder farmers in Southern Malawi. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 9:1736709. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1736709

Open Access

Funding: The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This paper was funded under the Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship (FAR-Leaf-II), a 2-year research-oriented fellowship programme, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) and hosted at Future Africa.

Author Contributions: JabN: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization, Visualization, Formal analysis, Validation, Data curation, Project administration. TM: Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Formal analysis. HT: Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. AN: Writing – original draft, Visualization, Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Validation. CC: Validation, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Formal analysis, Visualization. TN-C: Visualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. WM: Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Validation, Supervision. SM: Methodology, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. OA: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. JF-O: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. RW: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. JacN: Writing – review & editing. AF-M: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. ET-A: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. AK: Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. BL: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. LS: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. GN: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. JC: Writing – review & editing, Visualization. MC: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Visualization. PM: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Data curation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis.