The production of vermicompost is a major activity in sustainable agriculture at the Training Centre and is one of the processes for moving towards sustainability in our campus.

Vermicompost is a natural way of making compost and reusing the organic waste we produce on a daily basis. Last month the FSL-India volunteers harvested and filtered 700 Kg of low cost, organic fertiliser for our plants.

In the tank, different organic elements are placed, such as soil (filtered soil, because the stones will not decompose), dry leaves (dry because green leaves produce too much humidity for the worms inside the tank), cow dung (it helps everything decompose easily and quickly) and food waste.The food waste in the tank undergoes the decomposition process and the moisture level in the tank is maintained for 3 weeks, after which the worms are released into the tank to complete the process. The worms used for this process are of special species such as African earthworm (Eudrillus engenial), Red worm (Eisenia foetida) or Composting worm (Peronyx excavatus), which feed purely on decomposed food.The process does not sound appealing but the harvested compost looks like real coffee powder after the worms have done their work for one month and another month of letting it dry.  A filtering machine is used for the harvesting process, which expels the ready compost and keeps all the organic waste (non- decomposed waste) along with the worms on the tray so it is easy to put them back into the tank for re-use.

All the plants at the Training Centre are fertilized with the organic compost, made in-house and utilizing the organic waste we produce on a daily basis.