By Apoorva Sancheti
I learnt about earthworms as a seven-year-old. When I became an organic farmer, I realised how important they are and why we need them to rescue the health of our soil.
One evening, when I was seven years old, my mother brought home a packet of mud with earthworm eggs. ‘Earthworm eggs?’ I had thought in confusion, what are we going to do with them? Ma drilled holes into an old bucket and layered it with brick pieces, coconut fibre, twigs and leaves that my sister and I had collected, a layer of cow dung and soil mixed together, and then leaves and kitchen waste. She mixed in the earthworm eggs. For the next 15 days, we added kitchen waste and ensured the mixture remained moist.
A month later Ma called us excitedly and uncovered the pot. To our surprise, there was no old kitchen waste under the fresh waste! It had turned into a moist, granular, odourless mud-like substance. “This is humus! It is rich in organic carbon. The earthworms ate all the kitchen waste, and their excreta is humus,” she explained.
Compost bucket. Photo: Elaine Fatih/CC-BY-NC-2.0.
The common perception is that soil is non-living matter, but it is home to billions of living entities, such as bacteria and insects. This habitat flourishes with the help of humus and produces potassium, and other micronutrients. These are the most essential components for plant growth. When they are naturally available in the soil, one does not need to use chemical fertilisers for the growth of plants and crops. That is why the presence of earthworms is a necessary indicator of healthy soil. The excessive use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and deep tilling by tractors compacts soil, which makes it uninhabitable for earthworms.
Earthworms convert kitchen waste into compost. Photo: MIzzou CAFNR/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
There are two types of earthworms based on their feeding pattern – phytophagous and geophagous. Phytophagous earthworms work on the top layer of soil and feed on biomass. They are commonly used in pit composting – our bucket was a mini model of this kind. Geophagous earthworms are naturally found in farmlands. They go deep into the soil and eat their way to the surface, creating infinite small tunnels contributing to porosity and fertility. They are important for farming. To ensure soil is full of earthworms, farmers add biomass, moisture, and cow dung. Shallow tilling also keeps their environment intact.
It’s been three decades since my first encounter with these underground magicians. I play a small part in ‘rescuing’ them by encouraging others to nourish their soil with earthworms. They are now my friends and colleagues in my work as an organic farmer in Pune!
Apoorva Sancheti, an organic farmer, is an ardent student of Madhyasth Darshan philosophy, which encourages her to discover the innate wisdom that connects everything.
