Wealth from worms

By Ernesto Ordoñez
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE CHINESE character for earthworms translates as “angels of the earth.”

Cleopatra saw their value and decreed them “sacred.” Aristotle called them the “intestines of the soil.”

Charles Darwin made this telling statement: “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly, organized creatures.”

But at this time of economic and environmental crisis, the most relevant contribution of the worms to us is wealth: Both in terms of providing us cash and restoring our ecological balance.

True story

Antonio de Castro tells about his own experience in vermiculture and vermicomposting.

In 2001, he read an article on these subjects by Dr. Rafael Guerrero, then executive director of the Philippine Council on Aquatic and Marine Research Development (PCAMRD).

De Castro states: “Within two years of receiving the approximately 1 kilo of earthworms from Dr. Guerrero, we were running a 2-hectare farm using only vermicast that we produced ourselves using dayami, kakawati, acasia, carabao manure and sometimes chicken dung. The effectiveness was demonstrated in the results of the vegetables we were growing—all organic.”

He adds: “There was also very little disease or infestation on our plants. This we attributed to the plants being healthy enough to have developed very good resistance to pests and disease.”

In an Agrilink Fair in 2005, De Castro found out that the vegetable supplier of SM Supermarket had the problem of disposing of 3 to 5 tons of vegetable waste a week. De Castro made an agreement to collect her biodegradable waste for free. This relieved her of the expense of her garbage being picked up and her neighbors complaining of the odor.

Subsequently, De Castro converted this vegetable waste into wealth through his worms. He now propagates this technology to individuals and groups into solid waste management, as well as to small farmers who want to covert from chemical-based fertilizers to more natural and organic methods.

This technology has even reached the inmates of the Talisay City Jail in Cebu, which put together a presentation on vermiculture called “A Livelihood Project for the Environment” (http://wwww.bjmp.gov.ph).

Profitability

On a larger scale, how profitable is the vermiculture business? Philip Cruz states that you can get as much as a 250-percent return on six two-month vermicompost cycles. Below is the breakdown of this profitability.

Profit per 2-month cycle

Item Subtotal
Total Sales P113,880
Total Expenses P80,401
Total Profit P33,479
Total Annual Profit P200,874


(6 cycles)
ROR at 6 Production Cycles/Year 250%

It is said that teaching a person to fish is better than giving him or her a fish. In many instances, it is better to teach vermiculture to produce organic fertilizer than to give chemical fertilizer subsidies that may damage the environment and even result in more fertilizer scams.

Last June 14, I talked to Serge Montinola, a very successful agri-businessman who now spends his retirement years helping small farmers. He said that even Mapecon, a well-known pesticide company, is into vermiculture.

Truly, there is monetary wealth to be derived from worms. And environmental enhancement besides, which is specially important today as we face the dual challenge of global warming and a financial crisis.

Montinola says that if he were to choose the project that would have the best return on investment (ROI) for many small farmers, it would be vermiculture. Maybe he shares the same insight into the wealth from worms as the Chinese, Cleopatra, Aristotle and Darwin.

As the Department of Agriculture (DA) officials submit their 2010 budget proposal next June 25, we hope that they, too, share the same wisdom, complete a vermiculture master plan for the country and ask for the corresponding budget to support it.

For the rest of us, we can learn and do more regarding this subject by visiting the website: http://www.wormsphilippines.com, and possibly calling PCAMRD (0495 365578) and/or Antonio de Castro (0918 9385726).