Himachal farmers take to sericulture

After handicrafts helped Himachal Pradesh earn fame, sericulture is now catching the fancy of small and marginal farmers in the state, who are trying to gain from it. Sericulture is not only providing subsidiary employment, but is also supplementing the income of rural farmers, especially the economically weaker sections of society, who are rearing silk worms for producing silk cocoons.

As many as 8,400 below the poverty line (BPL) families spread over 1,800 villages are practising sericulture in Himachal Pradesh and the state government plans to increase the number of families practising it from the existing 8,400 to 30,000 and to increase their average annual income from Rs 5,000-6,000 to Rs 20,000 per annum.

Sericulture is practised in eight districts — Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Mandi, Kangra, Shimla, Solan, Sirmaur and Una. AK Kulshreshta, deputy director (sericulture), Himachal Pradesh, says as sericulture is an agro-based labour-intensive rural cottage industry, it is helping farmers to augment their income. More and more families are participating in this.

Also, the government has accorded priority to the development of the sericulture industry primarily because of its potential to raise the income level of small and marginal farmers as well as that of landless people.

The government has undertaken various activities, as result of which the production of green cocoon has gone up from 110 million tonnes (MT) in 2003-04 to 140 MT in 2007-08 and the official’s claim this year the production is likely to touch 150 MT. Kulshreshta says that as compared to 6.24 MT raw silk that was sold in the markets of Karnataka and West Bengal by the reeler’s of Himachal in 2006, this year the figure is likely to touch 8 MT.