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Aerial view of an orchard.

Aerial view of orchard plantings at Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, Ventura County, California.

Credit: Farmlore Films / Alamy Stock Photo

Vermiculture

Call to action:

Expand the use of worms to improve agricultural productivity, restore soil health, and reduce food waste.

Vermiculture is the intentional cultivation of worms. In gardens and farms, worms are raised and used to break down organic materials as part of a composting process called vermicomposting. During digestion, beneficial microbes are transferred from worm guts into their manure, called castings. When castings are added to soil or mixed into compost, microbes continue to break down organic matter. Castings are a natural fertilizer, providing essential nutrients. They can be steeped in water to produce compost tea. Vermicompost can prevent plant disease and increase the productivity and carbon content of soils. It can be used to divert food and plant waste from landfills. Certain hazardous wastes can also be treated through vermicomposting. Whether at home, on small-scale farms, or in large commercial vermiculture facilities, composting with worms can reduce methane emissions while regenerating the soil.

Action Items

Individuals

Learn about vermiculture and its benefits. Vermiculture has been practiced by many cultures for centuries and remains an important part of Indigenous and traditional agricultural practices. In the United States, it became popular in the 1970s as part of the emerging organic food and gardening movement. It has become integral to permaculture and regenerative agricultural practices. By vermicomposting at home, you can process all organic waste and create a powerful fertilizer for your garden or houseplants (see Compost Nexus for more information). Elements include:

  • Types of worms. The best worms for composting vary depending on climate and geography. The species most commonly used are Eisenia fetida, also known as red wiggler, and Lumbricus rubellis, a red earthworm native to Europe.
  • Processing waste. Vermicomposting can process all organic waste—food waste and animal manure. There is also increasing interest in processing plant waste. Studies show that hazardous wastes can be processed through vermicomposting as well.
  • Multiplying soil nutrients. When organic waste passes through the gut of a worm, nutrients are converted to forms that are easily available for plants and are rich in vitamins, growth hormones, and enzymes.
  • Restoring soil microbes. Vermicompost increases the microbe content and diversity and optimizes the fungi-bacteria ratio in soil and compost. It rebuilds soil fungus, bacteria, and enzymes, which further break down organic matter, making it ready for plant uptake.
  • Storing soil carbon. Some studies suggest that vermicompost allows soils to store more carbon.
  • Reducing pollution. Vermicompost increases plant tolerance to metal contamination and can play a role in the restoration of sites contaminated by mining activity. It can help with processing animal manure avoiding soil and water pollution.

Set up a worm bin at home. You can process your food and paper waste and make compost for your house and garden plants. To get started:

  • Repurpose old bins, buckets, or a bathtub. Alternatively, you may build your own worm bin using plans and instructions from experts. You can find a basic introduction here and instructions on how to get started here and here.
  • If you want a ready-to-go worm bin, many companies and worm farms sell worm bins, worm bags, worm huts, worm cafés, worm hotels, and accessories. Use wetted shredded paper as bedding and cardboard or a cloth as a cover. Consider purchasing the first set of worms from a farm nearby. See Key Players below for worm farms.
  • The worms eat a wide variety of organic materials: paper, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable waste, grains, and ground yard wastes. Citrus, meat, and bones should not be used. It is important not to overfeed the bin, as that will cause waste to rot and attract insects.
  • Depending on the setup, you can harvest vermicompost every few months. Some setups have a drainage mechanism, which will keep the worm bin from being too wet and allow you to harvest worm leachate, a by-product of decomposing cells. It can be added to the garden soil.
  • You can join a social media group of regional worm enthusiasts. They exchange tips, answer questions, and share equipment and worms, like this very large global group and this UK-based group.

Start or join a community vermiculture project. Community projects can not only recycle food waste into healthy soil additives but also be designed to build local capacity for food production, nutrition, education, and regenerative farming:

Groups

Farmers, Ranchers, and Landowners

Learn about the potential of worms for agriculture. There are many benefits to incorporating vermicompost on your farm:

  • Increasing plant health and growth while reducing the use of chemicals. The hormones and enzymes that vermicompost add to the soil can promote plant growth. The improved soil increases crop productivity and quality, eliminating the need for synthetic chemical fertilizers. This study found that the fruit of jalapeño peppers grown in substrate mixed 1:1 with vermicompost were larger and of higher quality than those of the plants grown without it.
  • Fewer pesticides. Vermicompost helps suppress plant diseases, allowing a decrease in the use of pesticides.
  • Reducing agriculture inputs. Soil structure can be improved with vermicompost, raising water infiltration rates and reducing water use. The application of vermicompost mimics some of the biological processes of natural pastures, where worms decompose manure of grazing animal herds passing through.

Supply a vermiculture project in the area with your farm's manure or other organic farming by-products. If you are unable to invest in vermiculture yourself, consider supplying organic waste to a nearby farm or community vermiculture project.

  • Coyne Dairy Farm in New York State partners with Worm Power, a large-scale worm composting facility, by supplying its cow manure.

Integrate vermiculture into your farm operation. Use vermicompost and worm leachate to regenerate your soils and improve plant growth and health.

Start a worm farm from scratch as a stand-alone business. You can scale operations quickly with low up-front investment.

  • Vermiculture farms can serve as a low-entry opportunity for small farm and business entrepreneurs. Up-front cost is low, and the required technological know-how is minimal and easily accessible.
  • Vermicompost retails for between two and twenty euros per liter in Europe (depending on the amount you purchase) and about seven dollars per gallon in the U.S.
  • Methods for medium- to large-scale worm farming include beds, windrows, and large, shallow bins. Some farms have well-developed machinery for harvesting vermicompost and producing worm tea.
  • Read here about when and how to harvest vermicompost, and here how worm tea is made.
  • To sell castings and worm tea on any scale, your worm farm needs processes and products that are reliable and tested. Check out this overview of recommended standards. You also need to comply with state regulations for agricultural and/or composting facilities.
  • Arizona Worm Farm engages in educational activities, taking bins to schools and businesses.
  • Scale your operations by building partnerships with restaurants.
  • Read this business plan from India for starting a worm company.
  • Watch how West Mountain Organics is starting its larger-scale farm.
  • Meet this red-worm farmer from the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, and read about this agricultural engineer’s operation in Rwanda.
  • Worms Downunder helps with the design and setup of large-scale worm farms in Australia.
  • This worm farmer in Pakistan explains how a vermiculture farm is operated (in Urdu).

Schools and Universities

Collect food waste and divert it to vermicomposting. Reduce food waste by engaging students in collection, composting, and vermicomposting.

  • Pearl City High School in Hawaii diverted almost 100 percent of its cafeteria food waste in cooperation with Waikiki Worm Company.
  • Laytonville School District in California saved water and fossil fuels while providing learning opportunities to its students.

Get involved in vermiculture as an educational activity. Use worm bins in classrooms and school gardens to show the benefits of healthy soils and demonstrate waste separation.

  • North Carolina State University’s Cooperative Extension has been hosting the annual Vermiculture Conference since 2001. The office also provides extensive learning resources on vermicomposting. NCSU runs the Compost Learning Lab, a training site that features a 30 x 40-foot worm barn, including a 40-square-foot continuous-flow-through raised bed. Read more here.
  • This article from the UAE provides an easy guide for educational vermicomposting in a school setting.
  • This link has resources and curricula for classroom vermiculture.

Companies

Start or support a community vermiculture project. Arrange to donate kitchen waste, coffee grounds, paper, and cardboard to a local worm facility. Restaurants and coffee shops can provide food waste and coffee grounds and create a community around their business. See Key Players below for a selection of farms.

Start a company-based vermiculture operation. If your business generates food waste—restaurant, grocery store, hotel, food processor, nursing home, wholesale food business, farmers’ market, shopping mall, or resort—and there is no composting facility nearby, vermiculture can reduce the cost of waste collection and produce compost for your outdoor areas.

  • Access basic information about vermiculture for businesses here.
  • Study best practices for on-site vermiculture systems for the commercial and industrial sectors.
  • Learn how to set up a worm bin at your office here or here.
  • A restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, set up a backyard worm composting system for its food waste.
  • This restaurant in Boise began on-site vermicomposting in 2010.

Governance

Utilize vermiculture as a municipal solid waste (MSW) solution. In communities with underdeveloped waste treatment infrastructure, vermiculture can be a low-cost way to sustainably address organic solid waste. Under appropriate conditions, it can be treated in thirty-plus days, resulting in around 60 percent volume reduction.

  • The City of San Francisco delivers all its residential organic waste to Jepson Prairie Organics, a large-scale composting facility that produces both thermophilic and vermicompost for sale.
  • Read about the potential of vermiculture for solid waste management in Saudi Arabia and this one on vermicomposting for small municipalities.

Use vermicomposting in government facilities, public infrastructure, and state/national parks. It is a clean and faster alternative to thermophilic composting.

  • Consider installing urine vermicomposting toilets in parks, saving costs on chemically treating or hauling human waste from remote-area public toilets.
  • Two vermicomposting toilets have been placed in the Slovenský raj National Park in Slovenia.
  • Nearly 140 parks are undertaking vermicomposting in New Delhi.
  • Over twenty cities in the Netherlands are equipped with community worm hotels, making neighborhoods greener and requiring municipalities to process less residual waste.

Create legislation to scale up vermiculture. Assuring waste separation and requiring food producers and wholesalers to arrange for composting organic wastes through regulation and legislation will pave the way for more widespread adoption of vermiculture.

Provide clear and easy ways to comply with regulations for composting companies and farms. Innovative projects, farms, and companies are supported by simplifying contradicting regulations.

  • Here is an overview of state-based organics-processing regulations in Australia, which includes vermiculture.
  • Here are the USDA guidelines, which focus on organic crop production.

Make incentives available for community vermiculture projects and vermicomposting business startups. Providing these projects with funding, education, and technical assistance can help close the food-waste loop, reduce organic waste in landfills, build community, and provide opportunities for community gardens addressing food insecurity.

Learn

Read

Vermiculture (Science Direct)

How to Start a Worm Farm (Small Business Trends)

Vermiculture Technology, edited by Clive A. Edwards et al.

Vermiculture: A Viable Solution for Sustainable Agriculture (Heather Staggs, MurraY State University)

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