Use of vermicomposting biotechnology for recycling organic wastes in agriculture

Recent trend of declining sustainability in agricultural production is appearing as a major threat to most of theAsian countries. To combat the situation, increasing importance is now being paid on incorporation of organicmaterials for rejuvenating the health condition and, hence, the productivity of these soils. Large scale availability ofconventional organic manures being a big problem nowadays, major attention is being paid on recycling ofdifferent kinds of organic wastes for this purpose. Apart from abatement of environmental pollution, such reuse oforganic wastes in agriculture helps in the improvement of various physical, chemical and biological properties ofthe soils and, thus, helps in sustaining the soil health. While recycling different organic wastes in agriculture, it isessential to process the materials through an adequate period of composting for improving their usability in thesoils. However, due to some short comings of traditional composting systems, the technology of recycling oforganic wastes has not been widely accepted so far. Under this situation, vermicomposting has recently emerged asa simple but efficient biotechnology for recycling wide ranges of organic wastes with the help of some specificgroups of earthworms. In view of the growing popularity of this biotechnology, various aspects of waste recyclingin agriculture through vermicomposting have been dealt in this communication.

Keywords:

Organic wastes , Recycling , Vermicomposting biotechnology , Agricultural uses