"There are many advantages of using earthworm castings, for one it is low-cost and the farm yields are vastly improved," said Rolly Bongoyan, a sugarcane producer and political affairs officer of Rep. Herminio Teves of the 3rd congressional district of Negros Oriental.
Two years ago, Bongoyan, like other farmer-producers were looking for ways to trim their production costs, as prices of commercial chemical-based fertilizers such as urea and potash increased by 100 percent.
Bongoyan then purchased an initial 10 kilos of red wiggler earthworms at P500 per kilo from the Oisca Farm in Kanlaon after hearing that palay grown using earthworm castings yielded as high as 200 cavans per hectare. He constructed 14 concrete beddings measuring 24 inches deep, 18 inches long and 16 inches wide. He also dug a compost pile from which pig manure and organic wastes such as rice straws and ipil-ipil leaves were converted into compost fertilizer and fed to the earthworms.
These creepy crawlers which thrive in dark and damp environs, multiply easily and Boyongan’s bedding bins produce about 1,000 50-kilo bags of organic vermin fertilizer or castings every two months. These are sold at P150 per bag, resulting in gross sales of P150,000 or P900,000 annually.
"I am making additional income from the sale of excess production of organic fertilizer, it is a good livelihood," said Bongoyan.
At the same time, yields from his leased 35-hectare sugar farm have never been better.
"I used to apply 14 to 16 bags of chemical fertilizers and I would spend about P14,000 per hectare. Now, I use 30 bags of earthworm castings per hectare at a cost of only P4,500 and an additional three bags of chemical fertilizer worth about P3,000. That’s still a huge cut on my fertilizer expenses."
Even more rewarding for Boyongan is that his production of sugar increased from an average of 55-60 metric tons (MT) to 70-80 MT per hectare.
Furthermore, the average sucrose recovery rates improved to 2.51 LKGTC from 2.10 LKGTC, exceeding the minimum benchmark of 2 LKGTC for some of the country’s more efficient sugar producers.
These results were validated by the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Region VII, and the provincial agriculturist of the local government of Negros Oriental. The Landbank of the Philippines also visited Boyongan’s farm several times to determine its economic viability.
Negros Oriental Governor George Arnaiz was so impressed with Boyongan’s venture that he encouraged the replication of the project in all municipalities in the province. About 200 kilos of earthworms were bought and distributed to local agriculturists for propagation and distribution to individual farmers and farmers‚ cooperatives in the area.
These days, Boyongan is assisting other farmers who are now into vermin organic fertilizer production.
Even Teves is now adopting vermiculture in his farm in the mountainous area of Tayasan in Tambulan.
"It makes sense to go into vermiculture. Not only is it cost effective, vermi fertilizer also improves soil conditions and what needs to be done is to produce this on a wider scale. By doing so, you also open opportunities for farmers to tap the growing market for organic agricultural produce," noted Teves.
Vermiculture started in India and was designed by an eco-technologist in Chennai. It is now very popular in India, especially among marginalized farmers because it is easy to adopt. Farmers rear them in pits which can easily be dug by members of the farm family.