Nightcrawler commodities: A brief history on the commodification of the humble dew worm

Abstract

Each year, 500 to 700 million dew worms are sold from thousands of gas stations, convenience stores, big box retailers, making this particular species, Lumbricus terrestris, the most popular live bait for recreational freshwater fisherman across North America. In fishing parlance, these effective bait worms are referred to as “Canadian Nightcrawlers,” not because they are native to the region (they are not) or because they cannot be found elsewhere (they can), but because the entire global supply comes from a stretch of rural land between Toronto and Windsor in Ontario, Canada. How did this simple garden worm become a valuable commodity, and why is production relegated to one single region in the world? In this paper, I rely on newspaper archives and key informant interviews to construct a “capitalist commodification story” that explain why demand for Canadian Nightcrawlers emerged in North America, why the production of nightcrawlers is relegated to southwestern Ontario, and how this lowly living, breathing, squirming creature beneath our feet became a capitalist commodity producing value through competitive markets. In sum, I argue L. terrestris became a capitalist commodity when burgeoning demand from a new class of recreational fishermen increased competition between nightcrawler suppliers. The inability of capital to take hold of the ecological conditions of nightcrawler production relegated the most productive producers to southwestern Ontario who had the contingent privileges of useful soils combined and cheap and efficient labor. The materiality of L. terrestris physiology is thus constitutive of how capital seeks to accumulate surplus value in a peculiar industry. At the same time, this research shows that no matter how peculiar or banal a commodity may be capitalist logics are constantly experimenting with heterogenous peoples and environments to find a way to increase productivity and accumulate surplus value through market exchange.