Worms in Hand of Will Allen

Recently Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power won the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, an award of $100,000 a year for five years. This makes all of us who know and respect Will very proud. But in all the articles applauding this urban farmer winning this award, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the NPR story and the New York Times there is barely, if any, mention of worms. Yet it is farming with worms, vermiculture, that brought Will Allen and Growing Power to my attention and the attention of the city, nation and world. There were and are many urban farmers growing all kinds of food, yet what distinguished Will’s method of growing was the use of worms to make castings, “black gold” as Will used to call it. I guess neglecting the role of worms is understandable, the worms being such a lowly creature. But it is the popularization of the use of worms for turning compost into rich organic soil, a phenomenon that has been going on for hundreds of years, that put Will and Growing Power on the map in farming. I have noticed in my last few tours of Growing Power with Will, and with all the help the Growing Power staff has supplied the DMZ community garden, a downplaying of the role of the worm and worm bins — they used to call ‘worm condos’. These worm boxes or piles play an essential role in this way of growing. There is no chance of Will being called the “worm guy” as the vermicomposting farmer I met in Venezuela is called, or as even I, a nobody gardener using this method, have been called. Yet it was Will and Growing Power that made us look at worms in a whole new way, and worms are at the heart of the Growing Power method.

Worms will adapt to this diminution of fame at Growing Power. They have outlived the Dinosaur, played a key part in Darwin’s theory of evolution and, despite the lack of fame, continue to play an essential role in this way of growing. Worms are like the poor. Society neglects and marginalizes them but still uses them to build wealth and power. It is like the present presidential race or economic crisis. Everyone talks about the greed of the rich, yet gives them a ‘bailout.’ Everyone talks about the important role of middle class, yet, most, at least the politicians, ignore the poor.

People say that by voting you can make a difference. I believe we can make a difference and have an obligation to do so, but it is not by voting in the ballot box. We, like a worm, can make a difference by playing the role we were born for, the worm to eat, cast and procreate and for us to make heaven on earth by doing the will of God or our Higher Power. We make a difference when we act according to our nature and values.

I was reading an article about the “Green Party” in the National Catholic Reporter. The article said that voting your values is never a wasted vote. However, if I were really going to vote my values I would probably vote for the Green Party Candidate for President of the USA. I do not agree with all the values of the Green Party but am more in tune with the Green Party than the Democrats or Republicans. Yet if I were to tell someone that I was voting my values and voting Green they would say that I was “wasting my vote.” If voting my values is wasting a vote what does this say about the whole voting system as it now exists? Wealth and power have created a democratic system where voting one’s values is limited or a waste? Where did voting one’s values go, the way of the worm?

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