Assessing fertilizer buying behavior of emerging farmers in a South African grain producing area

Fertilizer not only plays a major role in the profitability of the farmer’s business, but also represents an expensive farm input. The emerging farmer market segment is expanding and holds a great deal of potential for fertilizer companies to supply the growing need for fertilizer in this market. Almost all fertilizer marketing strategies of South African companies have been designed to cater for the commercial farming sector; however, if fertilizer suppliers want to focus on the emerging farmer market segment, they need to understand buying behavior of emerging farmers, as well as their needs when developing strategies to utilize opportunities in this developing market. This study aims to identify factors playing an important role in the buying behavior of emerging farmers in the Free State when purchasing fertilizer. The results show that service, brand, product, and learning or psychological factors highly influence emerging farmers’ fertilizer purchase decision. The study also finally draws recommendations and conclusions for managerial perusal.

Nutrition and Food in the Green city

Food is a significant dimension of life quality and of any proposal for a green city. With the green city movement, farmer markets are spreading increasingly. These are markets where farmers bring their products into the city to sell, thereby growers and producers turn into retailers. Recently the success of the Earth Markets displays citizens’ desire for quality and genuine food such as fruits, vegetables, meat, cheese. The dissemination and development of farmer market are chiefly due to the awareness that it is necessary to establish a relationship between producers and consumers, in order to have healthy and genuine products, energy saving and a lower environmental impact. The city has always had spaces for agricultural production; today these spaces are limited to the peri-urban area and they are often under the threat of overbuilding and urbanisation. In recent years this risk seems to be reduced both because of the presence of a greater awareness among the citizens about the importance of urban gardens, and due to the economic crisis, these forms of production have been appreciated. There is evidence that both at individual and community level, a growing interest in these spaces where food can be produced. These urban gardens are also sometimes created in degraded areas, hence playing a role in the redevelopment.