Silk farmers must move to profitable crops

Capt GR Gopinath | civil aviation pioneer and sericulture expert
Silk farming goes back more than a thousand years in India. Karnataka accounts for over 60 per cent of mulberry-based silkworm cocoon production. The farmers who rear silk worms and produce cocoons are in a symbiotic relationship with the reelers and twisters who make the yarn from cocoons and sell it to weavers and printers who make the saris later passed on to wholesalers and reach the shops.The industry is akin to the intricate warp and weft of the famed silk saris, with miillions employed from farm to shop floor. Farmers generally bear the brunt of misfortunes - the vicissitudes of weather, declining crops and failure due to disease, shortage of water due to low water tables in traditional silk cocoon-producing areas of Kolar, Siddlaghatta, Kunigal, Devanahalli, Ramanagaram, Chikkaballapur, Kanakapura, Bengaluru and Mysuru. Add to that lack of power for irrigation and finally, the dumping of silk yarn from China. The problem began many years ago, when import restrictions on yarn along with other materials, began to ease with the reforms set in motion by the PV Narasimha Rao government. It benefited other sectors but not farmers. The issue is complex and has no easy solutions. On the one hand, with India joining GATT and increasingly becoming part of the global trade, India wants export barriers to be dismantled to enable it to export. This has already enabled India to become a big exporter of engineering goods, software, IT services, automobile parts, leather goods and textiles - both cotton and silk, among other things. It is a two-way street. On the other hand, textile exporters lobby for lower duties to import silk yarn to be able to be competitive in their exports. But the biggest bane? Imported yarn from China is mixed by reelers with the local Kunigal and Mysuru race of silk worm. The cross-breed yarn produces domestic silk for Kanjeevaram, Benares, Dharmavaram and other fabrics. This has hit local farmers hard reducing demand for domestic silk cocoons and crashing prices. There is a case for imports. If import tariffs come down, the local industry which has always been protected, will become efficient benefiting consumers with quality goods at competitive prices, instead of suffering low quality shabby domestic goods. The Ambassador cars come to mind. India finds itself in a cleft stick — it can’t argue for lower tariffs for its exports while creating entry barriers for imports. What are the possible solutions? One, silk farmers have to improve their productivity and quality to be able to compete with the Chinese. (Even after freight, handling, insurance and various duties though reduced, the Chinese yarn is still cheaper and better). But improvement seems unlikely as the agriculture sector is neglected and beset with lack of rural infrastructure especially power, rising labour and other inputs. Two, the government, must devise prudent subsidy mechanism to bail out silk farmers. But again delivery mechanisms are full of corruption and seepages. This is part of the larger issue of India’s agriculture. Even though agriculture’s share in GDP is sliding, the number of people employed in agriculture (now at around 60%) has not, condemning a large population to poverty. The silk farmers, in particular, must move to other profitable crops and trades as they have in many developed countries over the years. Education is the answer.