Beyond the Bottle: Factors affecting adoption of liquid urine fertilizer among smallholder farmers in southern Malawi

Nyengere, Mzumara, Tholo, Njala, Chisenga, Nindi-Chigwe, Mwase, Mataka, Abdulrahman, Falola-Olasunkanmi, Wainaina, Fanyin-Martin, Tham-Agyekum, Kapinga, Lefadola, Shamala, Ndimbo, Cheboi, Chisale and Masuku

Abstract: The growing need for affordable, sustainable soil fertility solutions in sub-Saharan Africa has renewed interest in human-derived organic inputs, such as urine fertiliser. This study investigated the determinants of awareness, adoption, and intensity of urine fertiliser use among 251 smallholder farmers in Southern Malawi using a Triple-Hurdle Model (THM). All respondents were members of at least one organised farmer group, highlighting the strong institutional embeddedness of rural agriculture. 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, whereas odour concerns reduced it. Conditional awareness, extension contact, and farm size positively influenced adoption, while cost perceptions and odour concerns acted as major deterrents. The Inverse Mills Ratio (IMR) was negative and significant, confirming selection bias between awareness and adoption. In the third hurdle, intensity of use increased with extension contact, farm size, and poultry ownership, but declined with odour concerns. The findings demonstrate that although social organisation facilitates information access, actual uptake and continued use depend on effective extension engagement, resource endowment, and perception management. Policy actions should prioritise demonstration-based learning, odour-mitigation strategies, and integration of urine fertiliser into circular bioeconomy frameworks linking sanitation and agriculture.

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

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.

Open Access

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.