Worm composting at Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae is a practice of hua parakore Mauri as we connect with the health of our soil, seedlings, and people. We happily call this initiative at the Marae the worm factory. These three tubs consume about 24 lbs of wet compost a day!

We leverage the kai in the kitchen for our community by taking the wet scraps to feed our worms. We are able to connect our community to the soil through how we sort our scraps. Worms don’t like citrus or onions and our kitchen sorts the scraps for the worms.

The worm juice is natures best fertilizer. Our red wiggler worms can produce. The juice is sprayed on the seedlings and in the garden to help with the soil nutrition. The tubs are reclaimed, and the project built with volunteers. This initiative is a core practice of hua parakore. As we educate our community they can learn how to create their own fertilizer, share worms to help start new worm factories, and contribute to food sovereignty.