BioSoil Farm is a company based in the Glenville region of New York State. They have made it their mission to innovate the way that farmers across the nation grow the best crops while maintaining the environment. Focusing on organic plant “superfood,” BioSoil Farm has diligently researched and subsequently mastered how to produce hemp, agriculture crops, and even cannabis in a way that yields up to 30 percent better results than crops grown with traditional fertilizers.
BioSoil Farm is an all-year-round operative indoor farm that specializes in converting high-quality finished compost into premium “worm castings” (aka worm casting), and they also manufacture a line of solid and liquid soil-feeding systems that are based on healthy nutrients extracted from plant sources. Their complete crop system “Naked Nutes” (a slang term for “nutrients”): “Naked Nutes Roots & Veg” (which provides special nutrition to grow large plants and root balls), “Naked Nutes Flower” (which helps nurture flowers and buds), and “Naked Nutes Encapsulated Worm Castings” which delivers key maco and micronutrients over the course of the grow cycle.
From gardening to worm-growing startups
Chad Currin is the CEO of BioSoil Farm who hails from a long line of farmers, specifically, tobacco farmers. For many years, Chad was a stay-at-home dad yet as his children got older and more self-sufficient, he started getting increasingly interested in environmentalism, gardening, and finding ways to be “greener” and eco-friendly. He started finding ways to use food scraps and leftovers to farm more efficiently. He soon discovered that growing and housing worms were a fantastic way to produce healthy and beneficial soil amendments. Specifically, “worm castings” --which is just a fancy way to describe worm poop--is the key to creating rich soil that can produce the best of essentially any crop.
“A lot of people started asking me about my soil and the worm castings for their hobby gardens,” Chad explained. “I’m an environmentalist, and I started doing this only because I wanted to find a way to recycle waste usefully rather than just sticking it in ever-growing landfills. After I sold my worm castings to a number of small hobby farms I thought that it would be a good idea to start up a commercial business.”
Chad subsequently enrolled in a “worm school” (which was conducted largely online with a four-day farm residency) where he studied the properties of soil, worms, worm castings, and even how to breed worms to develop the most efficient breeds.
“Any worms that humans breed, are called “cultured nightcrawlers” since they are not native or natural to any part of the environment,” Chad explained.
“They are bred and created especially to help us get the best results from soil, and the best worms have the best microbes. When it comes down to it, everything is about the microbes.”
In order to create worms with excellent microbe properties, Chad diligently studied what the best kind of food, bedding, and temperatures to provide them with was. Typically, the “Alabama Night Crawler” variation does very well in the north-eastern part of the United States because they can withstand cold temperatures by digging down deep into the dirt and huddling together, but they weren’t right for a commercial operation. Red Wigglers – the standard in vermicomposting, also produce inferior worm castings, so they invented their own worm with the specific traits needed for a commercial operation.
“They make their homes in about 12 inches of dirt,” Chad explained and noted that keeping worms was not unlike the process of keeping and caring for honey-producing bees. “Our worms eat microbial matter from the compost and ultimately make beautiful worm castings. We also invented a process called ‘encapsulation’ where we encapsulated these worm castings in macro and micro-nutrients that deliver a steady stream of nutrients over a 16-week growing cycle. And, like the worm castings, these products can be used in both outdoor and indoor planting centers.”
Although many people would agree that it seems downright disgusting to eat food that was grown from worm dung, it is much healthier than a lot of the standard chemicals that the majority of mass-production farms use in Foods.
In fact, Chad has a strong suspicion that many of the recent “food allergies” that have cropped up are a direct result of too much-synthesized produce. And worm castings look and smell exactly like dirt.
“Even 30 or 40 years ago you didn’t really hear about allergies to wheat and grain,” Chad stated. “I know from my own family--who farmed tobacco before and after World War II--that once the synthesized chemicals were added to tobacco crops, the whole DNA of the plants changed…and that’s partly why cigarettes are so dangerous now. Synthesized produce is full of toxins that, under certain circumstances, can even be poisonous. There’s no worry about that with produce grown in worm casting soil.”
Building up the business and crowdfunding
It took Chad a total of 10 years to build up his business, and he officially launched BioSoil Farm, Inc.
on January 1, 2017. As they start their journey into commercial business, one of their biggest crops has been cannabis, specifically medical marijuana…a subject that is somewhat controversial but which has proven health benefits for people who are ailing from painful diseases such as cancer. In fact, Chad believes in this cause so much that he created the premiere crowdfunding platform called “420FundUs.com” to raise funds for entirely legal projects related to cannabis.
“Colorado legalized medical marijuana, and a lot of other places are following suit,” Chad said. “It can help people manage pain but, obviously, it needs to be grown as an organic and all-natural crop. The last thing people who are already sick need is to be exposed to additional toxins or chemicals via synthesized materials.
For that reason, our worm castings and plant-derived plant nutrients are ideal for cannabis crops.”
Chad firmly believes that his worm castings, encapsulated worm castings, and liquid nutrients can be beneficial to every kind of crop, but he understands why some farmers, such as corn farmers who base most of their crops on synthesized seeds, are reluctant to embrace an all-new organic method since they fear that their output could take a hit.
“The most important thing to a farmer is yield,” Chad explained. “I understand that, but our all-natural plant nutrients can make crops more productive, not less. I want to make farmers aware of this since, as an environmentalist, I would like to see a lot fewer chemicals and synthetics in agriculture all across the board.
We have even used our worm castings to help golf courses grow greener grass, and we’ve helped hemp crops which get turned into oil, fibers, cement, clothes…it’s very varied and positively impacts a lot of industries.”
Chad is also dedicated to ensuring that his farm leaves as small a carbon footprint as possible. They try to use as little power and artificial light as possible and also make an effort to give jobs to individuals who have difficulty finding employment such as formerly incarcerated persons, military veterans, and the disabled.
“Currently, we are working on producing an insecticide which will get rid of pests without harming worms or bees in anyways,” Chad explained. “I’m a big fan of bees, and we need more of them.
It’s also worth noting that our products will not harm children or pets. While you may not want to drink or eat them, you could without getting sick. Once you use our products, you won’t need to use those little yellow warning flags on your yard ever again.”