The importance of the earthworms in the agricultural practices is well known worldwide. They contribute in increasing the quality and fertility of agricultural soil. Earthworms provide key soil functions that favour many positive agro-ecosystem services. These services are important for agricultural sustainability but can be degraded now a day by intensive modern agricultural practices such as use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other toxic chemicals. Many literature reports have investigated the effect of pesticides, herbicides and other toxic chemicals on earthworms. This review tries to raise awareness among farmers and other peoples for the growing threats to earthworms, the impact of fertilizers, pesticides and chemicals on their soil farming activities and promotes sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural practices. The increasing use of pesticides and toxic chemicals in the agricultural lands has adverse effects on earthworms and the other soil fauna. Earthworms are important decomposers and exhibit a wide range of sensitive responses to environmental pollutants. They are commonly utilized as test organisms for environmental contaminations. Earthworms are incredible soil fauna playing an important role in maintaining soil health. Extensive use of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and soil toxicants in crop management are known to be growing threats to earthworms

Agro-ecosystem, Fertilizer, Pesticide, Herbicide, Insecticide and Soil toxicant

Earthworms are “Ecological Engineers” as they involve in soil building, soil turnover, increasing soil aeration, increasing porosity of soil and its water holding capacity, maintenance of soil fertility. They are also known as “Natural Ploughman” and “Farmer’s Friend” due to their crucial roles in soil ecosystem. Fast growing human population all over the world, especially in developing countries such as India and China, has forced to increase production of more food. To obtain high yields of food crops and protect the agricultural crops from various plant diseases, a large number of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides have been employed in modern agricultural practices. After green revolution in India, the use of these chemical fertilizers and pesticides has been increased manifold. Several ecological and environmental issues have been raised from the usage of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other toxic chemicals in modern agricultural practices. The soil fauna along with human population have also threatened. The excess use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides gradually eliminated the earthworm population in the soil. In the near future, loss of soil fauna and earthworms reduce yields of agricultural crops due to infertile soil. There are a lot of evidences that these chemical compounds have harmful effects on earthworm population. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides were employed with an intention to protect the growing human population all over the world by boosting agricultural crop production and reducing plant diseases outbreaks while their harmful effects on the environment and wild flora and fauna were totally ignored. Due to this ignorance, the important soil fauna, earthworms are now in danger. Hence, to protect and conserve soil fauna and earthworm population, government should make policies for promoting organic farming on a large scale. We should aware the farmers and villagers to avoid the usage of these harmful chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. We should encourage the application of organic fertilizers (vermicompost) and organic pesticides to protect the real worm of the earth

Jitendra Kumar and Arshad Ali (2025). A Review on the Growing Threats to Earthworm (The Farmer’s Friend). Biological Forum – An International Journal, 17(1): 82-86