Earlier, Manfred Fehr, Rogier, and I had mentioned the demand for urban
organic wastes (UOW) by farmers and others, which may affect composting operations.

I want to bring your attention to an article that is a case study of
markets for UOW in Hubli-Dharwad, Karnataka, India:

Fiona Nunan: "Urban organic waste markets: responding to change in
Hubli-Dharwad, India,"  Habitat International 24 (2000): 347-360.

Fiona (Uni. of Birmingham, School of Public Policy) directed two British
(DFID) projects under the Natural Resources Systems Programme on
peri-urban interface production systems.  She describes in the article the
system of auctioning decomposed matter from local garbage dumps and
otherwise allowing informal access of near-urban farmers to organic
wastes, the changes that are taking place in these two cities and how they
impinge on the farmers' need for organic matter.  I think this is the
first case study that pays attention to near-urban farmers'
perspectives.  The article stresses the conflict between the cities'
desire to have cleaner environments and the informal mechanisms that have
allowed extensive use of urban organics.

Chris Furedy