Gula Gula Food Forest Programs: Carbon Offsetting with Impact
Post
Published 13. May 2025 by laura.beaujour
New publication from our research on underground biodiversity and restoration

In a few days' time, we'll be holding a large farmer group meeting in Sumatra to share our belowground (agro)biodiversity research findings and highlight the importance of earthworms for soil health.
These findings are the result of 1.5 years of research carried out with the staff and students of Brawijaya University, in Malang, East Java.

Our team has been collecting worms and preparing 10 transparent planar cages, creating a living demonstration of soil ecosystem processes, in order to illustrate our conclusions.

Some interesting takes of our research:

  • The (species of) worms tend to increase as our regenerative agroforests are getting older and trees are producing more biomass and food for them.
  • The size of worms depends on the quality of the litter. Leuceana leaves - Leuceana being used in coffee agroforestry as a shade tree and nitrogen fixer- are considered a high-quality forage for worms.

If you'd like to take an in-depth look at our research into restoration and changes in underground biodiversity, here's the link to our article: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2950289625000193

Reference:
Kurniatun Hairiah, Paul Burgers, Ai Farida, Irma Ardi Kusumawati, Mila Oktavia Mardiani, Danny Dwi Saputra, Rika Ratna Sari, Leony Siska Aldini, Nandha Ardiansyah, Arega Dwi Putra, Avi Qurvanda Putri Pradani, Rizki Maulana Ishaq, Meine van Noordwijk,

Soil health indicators, farmer concepts and carbon market standards in agroforestation of underutilized lands in West Sumatra (Indonesia),

Soil Advances, Volume 3, 2025, 100051, ISSN 2950-2896,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilad.2025.100051.

#biodiversity #worms #sustainability #agroforesty