What Is Worm Farming?

Worm farming is the act of raising and keeping worms for profit. For the hobbyist, this profit is not generally tangible in terms of money, but there are other benefits to raising worms that are of secondary profit to most households.

Those who treat worm farming as a business can expect to make money at it if they are consistent. The act of worm farming, in general terms, is encouraging worms to do what comes natural to them and harvesting the products of that. Both the worms themselves and the castings they produce are marketable, though your location may play a large part as to which of the two is more profitable than the other. For many farmers, both products of their worm beds can be sold, but in some areas, one may be more valuable or require less work to make profit from.

Most of the work in worm farming is in keeping your worm beds organized and in harvesting the results of the worms’ labors.

A History of Worm Farming

Worm farming has been used in many cultures for as long as human history has been recorded. Fishermen were the first known worm keepers, though many worms were not kept in the way we think of it today, but instead hunted and harvested in the wild. It’s said that Queen Cleopatra of Egypt made killing worms a crime because of their contributions to her nation’s agriculture.

Worm culturing (encouraging worms into an area of the ground or to perform certain tasks in a certain area) has been around for centuries as a means of improving agriculture. Until the advent of modern chemical fertilizers, in fact, culturing worms in a garden bed or farmer’s field was considered a part of the entire agricultural process.

Organized worm farming, however, is a relatively modern invention and is a result of the commercialization of fishing as a hobby. Anglers love worms and are usually willing to buy them rather than hunt and harvest their own. This need is what really began the first commercial worm farms, which were usually part-time endeavors in someone’s shed, garage, or garden beds.