How to make money from mounds of farm manure

Worm farming sounds easy. There’s no danger of being chased by an angry worm or crushed in a pen by one.

"People think growing worms is quite simple but actually it's very difficult," says Dan Grubert, a farmer and chief executive of the Celtic Worm Company.

“You can’t put a white line around worms to keep them in. At any stage during the night, if they are not 100 per cent happy with their environment, they’ll just wriggle off and there’s no way of catching them.”

He has lost “massive, massive amounts” of worms in the eight years since he started farming them. However he still has billions of the creatures at his farm in Bantry and he hopes they will begin to support many local farm families any day now.

With 40 west Cork farmers, he has set up a collective to supply compost, which is then enriched by worms and turned into nutrient-rich fertilisers and composts.

The first Celtic Gold compost is due to reach the shelves of garden centres and co-ops within weeks.

The project has received the backing of the West Cork Development Partnership and Cork County Council, as well as funding of more than €120,000.

The farmers compost their manure and slurry on their farms and it is then fed to the worms. They digest and enrich it before expelling it in the form of worm cast.

The worm cast restores microbial richness and diversity to soil that has been exposed to chemicals in sprays and synthetic fertilisers. It has been likened to putting a spoon of live yogurt into the soil.

Mr Grubert got involved in the world of worms years ago to improve the soil in his polytunnels and saw an opportunity.

“I was sick and tired of seeing farmers getting kicked from pillar to post with grants being cut, everyone wanting cheap food yet no one wanted to pay the farmer money,” he says.

“I decided to set up a company which would benefit farmers directly by turning a liability into an asset by taking their manure and slurry and turning it into cash.”

The farmers hold a 51 per cent share in the company, which has set up what Mr Grubert believes is the State’s first industrial vermicomposting unit, in Bantry.

Mr Grubert says there is “huge potential” for worm cast at home and abroad. “There’s no one doing it on our scale here. There are some people doing it in their gardens and breeding worms for fish bait but nothing like this.”

The worms are kept in beds measuring 48 feet by five feet. As they feed on the top of the compost, the bottom of the bed is sliced away.

The company's research and development officer, Tara Duggan, says UCC research has found that a 10 per cent addition of worm cast to compost increased plant growth by more than 100 per cent and root growth by almost 60 per cent.

She says a steady supply of quality compost from farmers is essential, as worms can die if the diet is bad, or might crawl away to seek food elsewhere.

Mr Grubert says he cannot believe the interest in the compost before it has even hit the shelves. He says it “ticks every good box” with its natural credentials and support of local farm families. “I know it will be a success.”