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Worm culture vermiculture is part of a system that has been used in sustainable, organic agriculture for thousands of years.
So the agricultural industry creates a system that destroys one that is natural efficient and free.
The true value of worms and their role in reconditioning degraded soil is finally being realised with millions of farmers like Upendra beginning to re-introduce this method and enrich their soils.
Upendra Kumar Mohanta comes from a small village Kandasara, in thenorth of Orissa India.
Music . Ernest Rangling . Surfin home.planet.nl/~vanbergh/
WORMS
Certainly what earthworms do isn't simple in ecological terms. The great naturalist Charles Darwin, after making a careful study of them, wrote this:
"...it may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures."
"History of the world," he said
One important thing that earthworms do is to plow the soil by tunneling through it. Their tunnels provide the soil with passageways through which air and water can circulate, and that's important because soil microorganisms and plant roots need air and water just like we do. Without some kind of plowing, soil becomes compacted, air and water can't circulate in it, and plant roots can't penetrate it.
One study showed that each year on an acre (0.4 hectare) of average cultivated land, 16,000 pounds (7200 kg) of soil pass through earthworm guts and are deposited atop the soil -- 30,000 pounds (13,500 kg) in really wormy soil! Charles Darwin himself calculated that if all the worm excreta resulting from ten years of worm work on one acre of soil were spread over that acre, it would be two inches thick (5.08 cm).
This is something we should appreciate because earthworm droppings -- called castings when deposited atop the ground -- are rich in nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, and these are all important nutrients for healthy, prospering ecosystems. In your own backyard you might be able to confirm that grass around earthworm burrows grows taller and greener than grass just inches away.
