Could earthworms help transform the future of farming?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Worms are not the cutest of creatures. They’re slimy, often associated with death and tend to bring on feelings of disgust in many of us. But listener Dinesh thinks they’re underrated and wants to know whether earthworms could be the key to our planet’s future agricultural success? He’s an organic farmer in India’s Tamil Nadu province who grows these annelids to add to the soil, and he wants Crowdscience to find out exactly what they’re doing.
Anand Jagatia dons his gardening gloves and digs the dirt on these remarkable creatures, discovering how they can help improve soil quality, prevent fields from becoming waterlogged, and improve microbial numbers, all of which has the potential to increase crop yield.
But he also investigates the so-called ‘earthworm dilemma’ and the idea that in some parts of the world, boreal forest worms are releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, which could have dangerous consequences for climate change.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. You're listening to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service, the show that drills down into your questions about life, Earth and the universe. |
| 0:44.0 | I'm Anan Jagatier, and for this episode I've been doing a bit of DIY. |
| 0:49.0 | In fact, I'm building a house for worms. |
| 0:52.0 | This consists of some plastic crates which I'm going to |
| 0:54.9 | stack on top of each other. I've drilled some holes in the crates for ventilation |
| 1:00.8 | filled them with compost. So what have we got in here? Oh, it smells disgusting. |
| 1:06.0 | Okay, so we've got some bits of banana, some nice little bits of old bread and then |
| 1:15.6 | Right now I just need to add some worms |
| 1:20.1 | I'll just gently spread you out |
| 1:24.0 | This is kind of gross. I don't want to hurt them either. |
| 1:27.0 | There we go. |
| 1:29.0 | I'm just tuck them up in their little mud bed. |
| 1:33.8 | While I get accustomed to my new pets, |
| 1:36.0 | let's hear from this week's listener |
| 1:37.6 | to find out exactly why we're doing all of this. |
| 1:40.0 | My name is Denise and I'm from Tamnaru in southern India. I want to know how important |
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