HK farmer wriggling profit from earthworm breeding

The invertebrates and their dung are generating big business in Guangdong

In Lee Ka-lam's earthworm breeding base in Huiyang district of Huizhou city, Guangdong province, dozens of ridges are covered with a thin film in the greenhouses.

Under each film is a mixture of cow dung and soybean dregs, which creates a hotbed for the growth of earthworms.

When the films are lifted and the dung piles are removed, there is almost no smell, and groups of worms can be seen wriggling.

In an open space, a cylindrical separator rotates continuously. Workers shovel the worms and the dung, which by then has been consumed and excreted by the worms, into one end of the machine.

As the drum keeps turning, the screen at the front end will filter out the dung, which can be used as an organic fertilizer, and centrifugal force will force the worms into the plastic basket on the side of the separator.

Each day, Lee and his workers are usually busy packing the worms into special boxes for shipment in the evening.

"Afternoons are usually the busiest time for me and my colleagues," said Lee, a young entrepreneur from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The worms are sent directly to fishing gear stores and fishing grounds.

Although the market price for the worms sits at 2 yuan (31 cents) a box, Lee's worms can sell for 2.5 yuan a box due to their large size and high quality. Those sales represent about 10 percent of the market share in Guangdong.

In addition to the bestselling worms, the organic fertilizer made from their dung is screened out by the separator.

Lee gets the cow dung for his greenhouses in Guangzhou's Zengcheng district, located more than 100 kilometers from his earthworm farm.

After fermentation, the dung becomes a hot spot for earthworms to reproduce.

Their growth accelerates the decomposition and transformation of nutrients in the dung, making it an efficient and green organic fertilizer.

"After the cow dung is digested and excreted by the worms, organic matter such as humic acid that is required for plant growth is present in high amounts, and this plays a role in disease resistance and yield increase," Lee said.

Located in Xiajiao village, Huizhou city, Lee's earthworm farm now sits on 2 hectares of land.

Born in 1985, Lee, who is also a certificated stand-up paddling coach in Hong Kong, decided to venture into organic agricultural entrepreneurship.

In 2013, he returned to Huiyang, his hometown, taking with him earthworms and cow dung and focusing on developing his business of turning waste into treasure.

Lee started off planting dragon fruit and breeding worms simultaneously, but after talking to local experts about other cultivation ideas in 2017, he rented 6,667 square meters of land to expand his breeding operation in Huiyang's Pingtan township.

"Earthworms reproduce quickly, and after organic fertilizer is formed, earthworms can be filtered out and sold," Lee said.

In order to sell his surplus earthworms, he drove to nearby fishing gear stores and fishing grounds. Unexpectedly, his worms were very popular.

Because the profits from worm breeding were considerable, Lee decided to abandon dragon fruit altogether.

In 2019, he registered and established a biotechnology development and research company. He attended a training course and became a certified farmer in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Lee said he believes the organic agriculture industry has great potential on the mainland.

"Compared with first-tier cities, Huizhou has more space for the development of agriculture. Even if I decided to quintuple the production of earthworms, I would not worry about sales," he said. "Also, I have talked with Pingtan airport officials about selling the worms all over the country by air in the future."

Yang Yu'an, a local farmer who met Lee at a training course, said he heard that Lee was selling worm dung, just in time for watermelon season. Yang decided to try it out by buying just a few hundred kilograms at first.

"The effect of the earthworm dung fertilizer was seen in less than a week," he said.

Yang said that with the fertilizer, not only did the leaves become black and bright, but also the fruit tasted sweeter.

"Moreover, chemical fertilizers, as well as humic acid, potassium fulvic acid and other water-soluble organic fertilizers from agricultural materials stores, used to cost him from 300 yuan to 400 yuan per 0.067 hectare," he said. The earthworm fertilizer, however, only costs 100 yuan to 200 yuan for the same area.

Yang has been using the dung for seedling cultivation and fertilization ever since. Though earthworms themselves are selling well, market recognition of earthworm fertilizer is still low.

Lee said: "The traditional idea is that there is no fertility without smell. Although earthworm dung does not have a strong scent, it is actually rich in all kinds of organic matter needed for plant growth."

He said he is now preparing to apply for an organic fertilizer registration certification so he can open a broader market for earthworm fertilizer.

He has registered his own brand, and the annual output value produced by earthworms has reached 1.9 million yuan.

In addition, about 1,000 metric tons of worm fertilizer are produced every year, he said.

Despite the achievement, Lee said he needs constant challenges.

To this end, he has signed up for an entrepreneurship and innovation competition held in Guangdong this year.

The entry item is "earthworm porous fecal particles as new materials for batteries", a cooperative project between Lee and a Taiwan professor introduced to him by Huizhou University.

They plan to carbonize worm dung and use it to make batteries.

Meanwhile, worm feces is also being added into pig feed to help reduce the chance of the animals being affected by a virus.

"If the project is successful, it could not only increase the scientific and technological process of earthworm breeding, but also extend the industrial chain," Lee said.

As a member of the Huizhou Youth Federation, Lee said he hopes to contribute to youth exchanges and cooperation in the Greater Bay Area.

Meanwhile, he also hopes to help more young Hong Kong residents who want to come to Guangdong to start businesses and find employment opportunities in the field of organic agriculture.

He said he intends to establish a Hong Kong youth agricultural entrepreneurship base in Huizhou to provide a platform for entrepreneurship exchange.

He also wants to provide agricultural knowledge training, production guidance and other services to Hong Kong youth interested in launching organic agricultural startups, by inviting experts from South China Agricultural University and relevant research institutes and associations in Hong Kong.

Doing this will help young people better integrate into the Greater Bay Area and encourage them to contribute to its development, Lee said.