Underfoot, often forgottten and certainly under-appreciated, this creature is giving a lot back to humans and nature

Aging compost feeds worms. (Photo by Adam Riding, NYT)

A Rural Blog riddle: What's unsung, part of climate-change solutions, is studied by oligochaetologists, good at fishing and  arguably the world's best plow? Worms.

Lowly worms are helping southwest Arizona citizens, who live on drought-plagued land, find ways to grow and bloom their open spaces with less water. "Janis Norton turned her backyard from bare-bones, dead-ground scratch into a lush mix of garden and orchard," reports Brett Anderson of The New York Times. "A primary goal of gardeners like Norton is to naturally rejuvenate soil degraded by synthetic fertilizers and neglect. . . . Zach Brooks started the Arizona Worm Farm to help. Brooks told Anderson, "You use much less water if you have healthy, microbially active soil. . . . . Worms are a big part of that."

Brooks has put his worms to work. Anderson explains: "He uses donated waste to breed worms that help create compost for home gardeners and the farm itself. . . . The aging compost is made from layers of garden scraps, food waste and manure." Brooks described the process to him as "Turning garbage into food. . . . When you think of our compost, think of a giant lasagna."

The Arizona Worm Farm itself is a dynamic testimony to the hard-plowing worm. "Brooks bought the farm's 10 acres in 2014. . . .The site is a former cotton field that had been heavily treated with herbicide," Anderson reports. "Nearly halfway into a 10-year plan to establish a fully sustainable, off-the-grid farm, Brooks sees his project as proof of how quickly damaged land can be restored using natural methods. It includes gardens and a food forest, a dense collection of plants that support one another, comprising mostly fruits and vegetables. Together, they provide produce for a small farm store and meals for his 20 employees."

Photo via Santa Barbara Independent

The gifts of worms seem endless. "The composting keeps food waste from rotting in landfills, where it generates methane, a gas more environmentally damaging than carbon dioxide," Anderson writes. "About five miles to the north, Nika Forte uses compost donated by the worm farm to grow crops in an old parking lot next to a highway. . . . The farm provides produce for food pantries and an adjacent cafeteria, which serves free meals to families."

What else are worms up to? Cleaning polluted water. "Many farms, especially dairy farms, struggle with how to dispose of polluted wastewater. The hundreds of millions of gallons of water farms use gets contaminated with animal waste, artificial fertilizers, and harmful chemicals, which frequently percolate down to the groundwater that people could one day drink," reports Dennis Allen for the Santa Barbara Independent. "Some regenerative ag operations are finding a nifty solution to this problem. They are discovering that earthworms, those ubiquitous dirt-eaters, are also able to clean water. . . . . Only recently has it been found that they can also cleanse wastewater."

Who knew? "Vermifiltrated water is highly nutritive, pathogen-free, and scrubbed of chemicals, qualifying it for use on crop fields. The key to this low-cost, efficient, and odor-free process is the earthworm," Allen expounds. "These workers live, on average, six years, have numerous offspring, and each one produces about 10 pounds of castings per year, a nutritious and valuable soil amendment. This vermicompost can produce an additional income stream for farmers or can be used on their own crops."