Silk Production-Economics

Silk - the queen of all fabrics is historically one of India's most important industries. India produces a variety of silks called Mulberry, Tasar, Muga and Eri, based on the feeding habit of the cocoons. Over 30 countries produce silk, and the major ones are China (54%), India (18%) and Japan (9%).

The sericulture industry today employs over 700,000 farm families and is mostly concentrated in Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh and to some extent Assam and West Bengal. Karnataka accounts for more than 70 percent of the country's total silk production.

Sericulture is one industry which is beneficial to the agriculturists. As in today 56 lakhs people are dependent on the sericulture industry, 5.6 million people out of which 4.7 million are agriculturists. The rest are reelers, weavers etc.

India is the second largest producer of silk, contributing to about 18 per cent to the world production. What is however, more noteworthy is the fact that India's requirement of raw silk is much higher than its current production at present. Thus, there is considerable scope for stepping up production of raw silk in the country, overcome the persistent conflict of interest between exporters of silk products and producers of raw silk.

Karnataka produced 8,240 metric tonnes of silk for the year 2007-08, a growth of 4.5 per cent compared to the previous year. Currently, the state accounts for 50 per cent of the country's total output, which is around 16,525 metric tonnes. A decade ago Karnataka accounted for 60 per cent of the country's total silk production.

Area under silk cultivation has witnessed a decline during the last financial year. It has gone down by about 6.3 per cent to 91,431 hectares in 2007-08 compared to the previous year.

However, per hectare silk production, which was 81 kg in 2006-07, went up to 90 kg in 2007-08. Productivity in Karnataka is 25 per cent more as compared to states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Per hectare silk production in China is about 100 kg. We will soon reach that mark.

Kazi said the main reason for the gradual reduction in the area under mulberry cultivation is growing urbanisation around major silk producing areas including Bangalore Rural, Kolar, Ramnagar, Mandya and Mysore. He admitted that shortage of labour and water has also affected the industry, besides the cheap and better quality silk from China flooding the market.

Of the proposed measures to boost silk output in the state, the most significant one is the move to import three automatic reeling machines from China. Each of the imported reeling machine would cost Rs 1 crore. While the Central Silk Board would bear 50 per cent of the cost, the state government would bear 25 per cent. The remaining Rs 25 lakh will have to be paid by the private silk reelers interested in setting up such units.

Each of the automatic reeling machine is capable of processing 700 kg of cocoons per day and producing 34 metric tons of bivoltine silk per year.

The cultivation of silk is called sericulture.