Alan Davies

Mark, paint us a picture.

What's it looking like down there?

I can't tell you, Lister, the look of joy on Sandra's face, the first mention of an earthworm cast.

It's literally your favourite thing on earth.

You're collecting those?

Yeah.

Because they're nutrient-rich, right, the cast?

Yes, black gold.

Black gold, yeah.

So, Sandra, imagine the plants have exhausted all the last of the earthworm castes.

The decomposition that earthworms are responsible for is slowing right down.

Can we give nature a boost?

You paint a lovely picture and I'm glad because earlier on you were saying that you'd rather talk to a worm than a person and I was concerned.

But now you're having a Friday compost meeting and perhaps this will be happening all over the country now a year without worms.

But will it be enough?

Can you replace the work of the worms?

There's going to have to be a huge change and a new attitude towards food waste especially and the waste of organic matter.

This worm-shaped hole is...

So there's quite a significant reduction in just the amount of crops we can grow.

We've had a year without worms and the likelihood is there's less food to go around, it's more expensive and the chances are we're going to do some damage to the environment to make up for this loss.