Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Commercialization and Economics of Vermicomposting Systems.......................................370
INTRODUCTION
The importance of earthworms in the breakdown of organic matter and the release of the nutrients
that it contains has been known for a long time (Darwin 1881). It has been demonstrated clearly that
some species of earthworms are specialized to live specifically in decaying organic matter and can
degrade it into fine particulate materials, rich in available nutrients, with considerable commercial
potential as plant growth media soil amendments (Edwards and Bohlen 1996). For instance, earth-
worms are able to process sewage sludges and solids from wastewater (Neuhauser et al. 1988); brewery
wastes (Butt 1993); processed potato wastes (Edwards 1983); waste from the paper industries (Butt
1993); wastes from supermarkets and restaurants (Edwards 1995a,b); animal wastes from poultry,
pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and rabbits (Edwards et al. 1985; Edwards 1988); as well as
horticultural residues from dead plants, yard wastes (Edwards 1995a,b), and wastes from the mush-
room industry (Edwards 1988).
For many years, certain species of earthworms have been bred for sale as fish bait in a wide
diversity of organic wastes. Since 1978, interest in possible ways of using similar methods for
processing organic wastes using earthworms to produce valuable soil additives and protein for
animal feed has been expanding rapidly. This has resulted in a series of conferences aimed at
reviewing and promoting such processes and systems. The first of these conferences, Utilization
of Soil Organisms in Sludge Management (Hartenstein 1978), which was held in Syracuse, NY,
focused on the processing of sewage sludges and biosolids by earthworms, as did the second
conference, Workshop on the Role of Earthworms in the Stabilization of Organic Residues (Appel-
hof 1981), which was held in Kalamazoo, MI. Both conferences were attended by leading earth-
worm scientists. These conferences were followed by the International Symposium on Agricultural
Prospects in Earthworm Farming (Tomati and Grappelli 1984), which was organized in Rome,
Italy. The largest, Symposium on the Use of Earthworms in Waste Management and Environmental
Management (Edwards and Neuhauser 1988), was in Cambridge, U.K., and had about 400 partic-
ipants. In addition, sessions relating to earthworms and waste management have been held at the
International Earthworm Symposia in Bologna, Italy, in 1985 (Pagliai and Omodeo 1987); Avignon,
France, in 1990 (Kretzschmar 1992); Columbus, OH, in 1994 (Edwards 1997); Vigo, Spain, in
1998 (Diaz Cosin et al. 1999); and Cardiff, Wales, in 2002 (A.J. Morgan 2003). These are attended
by increasingly larger numbers of earthworm scientists.
Research into vermicomposting and commercial projects has been developed in many countries,
including England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the United States, Cuba,
Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, India and other parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand,
Cuba, the Bahamas, and many countries in South America. Research in the United States at the
State University of New York (SUNY) on earthworms in waste breakdown concentrated initially
on the utilization of sewage sludges and solids to produce vermicomposts (Neuhauser et al. 1988)
