TY - JOUR

T1 - Ex-ante demand assessment and willingness to pay for human excreta derived co-compost

T2 - Empirical evidence from rural South Africa

AU - Gwara, Simon

AU - Wale, Edilegnaw

AU - Lundhede, Thomas

AU - Jourdain, Damien

AU - Odindo, Alfred

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022

PY - 2023/2

Y1 - 2023/2

N2 - Recovering plant nutrients from human excreta streams through circular bioeconomy initiatives like co-composting may offer a cross-sectoral solution to waste management, sanitation, and agriculture. However, the failure of composting innovations is attributed to a lack of a ready market for the compost produced. The current study hypothesizes that improving the desirable attributes of compost to the market through pelletization, fortification, packaging (with labelling), and certification of co-compost could enhance the market demand for co-compost. Socioeconomic variables such as income, religiosity, and environmental attitudes as measured by the new ecological paradigm, were also hypothesized to influence the willingness to pay for co-compost. Based on Lancaster's characteristics demand theory, the efficient Bayesian design, and the discrete choice experiment, we administered a mobile-based survey to 341 rural farmers. The conditional logit, random parameters, and latent class models show that the rural farmers were willing to pay for all the attributes included, especially certification by relevant authorities (ZAR1.70/kg) and fortification with inorganic mineral fertilizers (ZAR1.49/kg). The findings also indicate the influence of income, religiosity, and environmental attitudes on farmers' willingness to pay for co-compost. The results demonstrate the importance of addressing perceived and actual health risk through certification and the complementary role of co-compost in enhancing the agronomic efficiency of chemical fertilizers through fortification in farming systems. Redesigning compost to include the identified attributes could enhance its market appeal. Mainstreaming dissemination strategies and targeting customer segments could improve social acceptance of human excreta-derived compost in agriculture.

AB - Recovering plant nutrients from human excreta streams through circular bioeconomy initiatives like co-composting may offer a cross-sectoral solution to waste management, sanitation, and agriculture. However, the failure of composting innovations is attributed to a lack of a ready market for the compost produced. The current study hypothesizes that improving the desirable attributes of compost to the market through pelletization, fortification, packaging (with labelling), and certification of co-compost could enhance the market demand for co-compost. Socioeconomic variables such as income, religiosity, and environmental attitudes as measured by the new ecological paradigm, were also hypothesized to influence the willingness to pay for co-compost. Based on Lancaster's characteristics demand theory, the efficient Bayesian design, and the discrete choice experiment, we administered a mobile-based survey to 341 rural farmers. The conditional logit, random parameters, and latent class models show that the rural farmers were willing to pay for all the attributes included, especially certification by relevant authorities (ZAR1.70/kg) and fortification with inorganic mineral fertilizers (ZAR1.49/kg). The findings also indicate the influence of income, religiosity, and environmental attitudes on farmers' willingness to pay for co-compost. The results demonstrate the importance of addressing perceived and actual health risk through certification and the complementary role of co-compost in enhancing the agronomic efficiency of chemical fertilizers through fortification in farming systems. Redesigning compost to include the identified attributes could enhance its market appeal. Mainstreaming dissemination strategies and targeting customer segments could improve social acceptance of human excreta-derived compost in agriculture.

KW - Choice experiment

KW - Co-compost

KW - Demand assessment

KW - Efficient design

KW - Human excreta

KW - Willingness to pay

U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135570

DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135570

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85147124888

VL - 388

JO - Journal of Cleaner Production

JF - Journal of Cleaner Production

SN - 0959-6526

M1 - 135570

ER -