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fishing worms
Worm growing - on a commercial basis.
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Are you thinking of getting into the worm growing business? Have you seen the
advertisements – “We will tell you everything you need to know about growing worms! We
will sell you the books, the bedding, the formula! Watch your worms multiply! We run a
buy back scheme! Sell your worms to tackle shops, local councils for composting and
football pitches for soil restoration!”
Well think again! In my experience these things are scams. The people selling you this
package do not provide you with the correct information to grow the worms. In fact it
is extremely difficult to grow worms. Worms will not thrive unless the conditions are
exactly right. What is more likely to happen is that the worms will crawl away the
first night of heavy rain. Or they will come to the surface and die because the bedding
is toxic for them. Growing worms is an extremely specialised occupation and people who
know how to do it are not likely to give their secrets away.
The market is not as wide as these scams would have you believe. The market for worms
is generally restricted to anglers and anglers do 80% of their fishing between June,
July, August and September. The point being that it is very seasonal. I am not aware of
any football pitch ever having used commercially grown worms to irrigate their soil. In
fact, the worms used for soil improvement (lobs) are a completely different species to
those promoted in these schemes (dendrobaena’s). Local authorities have experimented
with worms for composting and while it does work it does not work fast enough to break
down the large amounts of waste they have to deal with. Most local authorities have
dismissed vermicomposting as a solution to large scale waste management.
These schemes are often targeted to farmers who are seeking to diversify from more
traditional farming. Many of the farmers who embark on these schemes do so without
conducting adequate market research. They do not for example realise that every tackle
shop in their area will already have a supplier of worms.
Many people have had their fingers burnt with these schemes. So our advice to would be
worm growers is think long and hard before moving into this industry. Despite the sales
pitch worms are not easy to grow. If you do decide to go ahead with such a scheme do
not buy in large quantities until you are confident your investment will not crawl
away. And check out your market and competition before parting with your hard earned
cash!
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Water Butts
