The drums of a four meter long, self-made screen rotate in a storage shed.

Here no wheat is separated from the chaff, but earthworms from hummus.

In a storage room that is always bright and always ventilated, there are rows of white plastic tubs.

If you drive through the earth in the containers, which is enriched with horse manure, you suddenly have dozens of blind, deaf, mute animals that are so important for nature at your fingertips.

Their excrement is high-quality natural fertilizer.

"We have two different worms," ​​says Benjamin Fröse in his small worm farm Bestworm in Reinheim in southern Hesse.

One for the fishing hooks, they are much larger.

Another as a compost worm.

"For the accelerated composting of organic waste and the production of high-quality soil, for example for your own green garden or home vegetable cultivation, there is nothing to be said against the use of earthworms from worm farms," ​​says the consultant for species protection at the Nabu Nature Conservation Union, Sebastian Kolberg.

Lockdown as a springboard

"The earthworm is the second most important animal in the world after bees," says Fröse.

They fertilized the soil and made it ready to absorb more water.

However, his interest in animals was aroused more or less by accident.

"The worms are a sideline," says the 49-year-old, who runs the facility with his family.

The Fröses have an interior design business and a colleague on a construction site told him about his plans for a worm farm.

"That's when I started to take an interest in it." In the winter of 2016/2017 he built the approximately four-meter-long sieve in his basement.

But sales only started in 2019.

Already on the first day after the activation of the homepage he had two orders.

He then benefited from the first lockdown in the corona pandemic.

“A lot of people were at home and wanted to do something in their gardens.

That was our springboard.”

There is plenty of competition in the business.

Garden soil and worms are also available in specialized stores and other worm breeders do the business on a much larger scale.

The Superwurm company in Düren, North Rhine-Westphalia, which claims to have been in business for more than 20 years, has a much more comprehensive range than Fröses.

And every garden owner can build their own worm farms.

Threatened earthworm species

Benjamin Fröse currently offers two types of worms and two different soils.

But the family would like to expand the business a little more.

A 200 square meter hall is currently under construction.

In four months, the worm farm is to move from the small storage shed in Reinheim to the much larger production room.

Here there is also more protection against the numerous predators of the worms.

According to the 49-year-old, 30 percent of the animals fell victim to their natural enemies last year.

According to Kolberg, care should be taken to use native species when breeding worms.

There are 47 earthworm species in Germany, half of which are now on the red list of endangered species.

When exporting, you also have to pay attention to where the worms are sent.

"European earthworms are often used as fishing bait in Canada, for example," says Kolberg.

Leftover bait would be thrown away carelessly.

"Earthworms have not been native there for almost 200,000 years." Humans have introduced them and now they have become a problem for the ecosystems there.