Farmers’ Intention in Applying Food Waste as Fertilizer: Reliability and Validity Using Smart-PLS

Abstract

The overflow of food waste as well as other type of waste causes limited place to manage waste. Thus, waste management especially solid food waste can be reuse for crops as compost fertilizer. The objective of this study is to determine which are the major factor that affect farmers’ intention to apply food waste in their crops. A combination of Knowledge-Attitude-Practice Model and Theory of Planned Behavior were applied to develop a framework. From these, five adapted constructs were identified namely knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, perceive behavior control and intentions. Results indicated that the initial model proposed in the study was partially supported where farmers’ intention was supported by attitude (b= .239, r< .05), subjective norm (b= .251, r= .05), and perceived behavioral control (b= .519, r< .00). However, there were no significant interaction effects of knowledge on attitude (b= .192, r= .33) and intention (b= .192, r= .33). This study expands the literature on food waste by focusing on farmers’ intention from the perspectives of knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Overall, this study verified the importance of applying food waste fertilizer since it consists of high moisture with several beneficial nutrients.