Think Global Act Local
                                       (July 2019)

Meet Cid Riley, worm farming extraordinaire and proprietor of local business Global Worming. Cid has always had an interest in worms, having owned his first worm farm at the age of 11. He is also passionate about minimising food waste and doing it sustainably. And with an earlier career in economics, Cid considers himself the world’s first ‘vermi-conomist’.
 
Cid began collecting food waste and trialling composting with worms from a Canberra business in 2004 - a wholly new concept at the time. His mission: demonstrating that worm farms can be clean, tidy and smell free, and also what can be achieved on the sustainability front. Global Worming became a fulltime affair in 2012 and now includes sites in Tarago, Fairbairn and Canberra City Farm in Fyshwick. Today Cid has 50 clients including businesses, schools, government departments, and everything in between. This equates to a staggering 200 000 employees and ten tonnes per week saved from landfill (52 weeks of the year)!
 
Global Worming is as much about education and reducing food waste as it is a way to make a living. Consequently, Cid leases farms out, a service which includes assistance with the setup, maintenance and harvesting of worm castings and tea from the farms. Schools are also wowed with interactive talks about everything worm.
 
Handy worm tidbits:

• Worms have a brain, 5 hearts and are hermaphrodites. Cid said he also observes worms communicating with each other - to keep safe, for instance;
• Worm farms need to be well insulated and appropriately located (sunny in winter, full shade in summer);
• When starting your worm farm, include a generous layer of carbon ingredients in the base. Cid suggests one-part cocoa peat, one-part shredded newspaper (soaked in water first) and one-part worm castings or home compost;
• Fill one half of your farm with scraps at a time; this way if there are any toxicity issues, the worms can escape to the other side;
• Before feeding your worms once each week, scrape existing non-food side of your farm to check for ideal moisture and no rotting bits, before adding food;
• If worms are starved of food, they reduce their size to compensate; they also assess food volume and breed accordingly;
• Harvesting castings and/or worms: exposing worms to vibration or light causes them to congregate at the bottom of the farm. Gradually peel castings off the top until only worms remain;
• Making worm tea: in a bucket, put 10-parts worm castings in a stocking to one-part water. Let soak for a few days and give a stir every now and then. Remove stocking and use castings in your garden. As for the tea concentrate, dilute one-part concentrate to 10-parts water.

 
Cid has been carrying out testing of worm tea for the past five years and now has worm tea available to purchase. Worm tea is 3-10 times stronger than seaweed products; on average, there are 26 000 beneficial microbes per ml of seaweed extract, compared to 7.7 million per ml of worm tea extract!
 
Cid also sells acclimatised and ‘food waste ready’ starter worms for backyard farms (up to ½ kilo of worms which equates to 2000 worms).
 
For sales and more: [email protected]
 

Global Worming’s Cid Riley, and worms, at his Fyshwick site in Canberra ACT.

Global castings, nature’s gift to everything garden.

Food waste collection bins – purple is the internationally recognised colour for food waste recycling.