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Vermiculture (Worm Composting)

Families working with SHI in Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua and Panama are getting some help from tiny friends to turn waste into free, organic fertilizer for their crops.  

Vermiculture is the practice of making compost with worms. Red Wigglers (Eisenia foetida or Eisenia andrei) are the type of worm most commonly used for vermiculture projects and SHI's local staff and families have found them to be very effective. The worms are fed garden scraps, organic material (leaf waste, clippings, corn husks, coffee pulp, rice husks, etc) and/or manure. As they worms move and eat through the waste, they transform it into super-rich compost for the garden. Three cheers for these little farmers' helpers!

In 2008-2009, Sustainable Harvest International's local staff in Central America have worked with families, communities and schools to establish 180 vermiculture projects.

> Click here to view more worm composting photos on our Flickr site.