The full proceedings paper is at: www.extension.org/72831 New uses of manure can be win-win opportunities for livestock and poultry farmers, new users, and the environment. While there is increasing interest by crop farmers in using manure as a source of nutrients, another potential market is households. This study was conducted to look at factors that affect stated use of organic fertilizer, in order to enable producers and professionals to market this product to homeowners.

1. Factors Affecting Household Use of
Organic Fertilizer
Laura McCann and Dong Won Shin
University of Missouri

2. Manure as a value-added product
New uses for manure can be win-win
opportunities for livestock farmers, new users,
and the environment.
While there is increasing interest by crop
farmers in using manure as a source of
nutrients, another potential market is
households.
Specifically, it can be marketed as an organic
fertilizer.

4. Data
A survey of households in the Columbia,
Missouri area was conducted in spring of 2014
They were asked questions about their lawn and
yard management practices as well as attitudinal
and demographic information
One question was whether they used an
“organic fertilizer (composted manure)”

5. The effective response rate was 44%
About 27 percent of all households had adopted
organic fertilizer to some extent
Logistic regression was used to examine which
factors affected adoption of the practice
The pseudo-R2 was 0.225, n = 620

6. A knowledge dummy variable was constructed
to examine knowledge of stormwater movement,
the definition of a watershed, and linkages
between yard care and water quality.
An environmental attitude dummy variable was
constructed from four questions regarding the
importance of water quality and willingness to do
something about it.

7. Results
Those with more knowledge (p<0.01) and more
pro-environmental attitudes (p<0.10) were more
likely to adopt organic fertilizer.
If they indicated that they trusted environmental
groups “very much” they were more likely to
adopt than those who indicated lower trust
(p<0.10).

8. If they indicated they based their fertilizer
applications on internet information they were
more likely to adopt than those who got
information from professionals or Extension
(p<0.05). Other sources were not significant.
Those who tested their soil were more likely to
adopt as were those who planted drought-
tolerant plants or had rain gardens (p<0.01).

9. Those who spent more than 10 hours per month
on gardening were more likely to adopt than
those who spent less time (p<0.01).
Demographic information was not linearly
related to adoption. People who were 46-60
years old were less likely to adopt than those 31-
45.
Those with income levels of $50,000-75,000
were more likely to adopt than those with
incomes less than 25,000 or more than 75,000.

10. Where they lived (city, suburbs, country) was not
significant nor was home ownership, when
controlling for other factors.
The number of times they fertilized per year was
not significant in the final model.

11. Conclusions and implications
Users of organic fertilizer seem to be young,
well-informed, serious gardeners that are also
concerned with environmental issues.
Advertising organic fertilizer on the internet is a
good way to reach these consumers.
While it is not supported by the data, I suspect
that selling organic fertilizer at farmers’ markets
might be worthwhile.

13. Acknowledgements
This project was partially funded by a USDA-
NIFA Integrated Research, Extension and
Education 406 Project