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| ISBN-13: | 9781853390173 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Practical Action Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/01/1990 |
| Edition description: | UK ed. |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 7.00(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Silk in India
1. The Importance of Indian Silk
India is now the second largest producer of silk in the world after China (Tables I and 2). From the 1960s, China rapidly replaced Japan as the world's largest silk producer as its own production expanded and that of Japan declined with rapid industrial development, high labour costs, and declining demand for kimonos. The continuing decline of production in Japan and high growth in India led to the latter's ascendancy to the second position in 1986. For similar reasons, production in South Korea has declined since the late 1970s. Though production in the USSR has grown steadily, growth has been much slower than in India. In recent years, Brazil has also emerged as an important producer.
India is the only producer of all four commercial varieties of silk: mulberry, tasar, eri, and muga. China and Korea also produce substantial quantities of tasar, whereas small quantities of eri silk are produced in a number of tropical countries. Muga silk is produced exclusively in the northeastern region of India. The Indian production of around 450 tonnes of tasar silk in recent years is second only to the Chinese production of around 1000 tonnes.
International trade in silk is conducted in a number of forms including cocoons, reeled raw silk, silk yarn, fabrics, made-up goods, waste silk. Table 3 provides the latest available figures for international trade in mulberry silk excluding waste silk. These are presented as tonnes of raw silk equivalent for indicative purposes, though a differential composition of the quantity totals means that direct comparisons in terms of value cannot be made. The table shows that India was the fourth largest net exporter of mulberry silk in 1982, though its net exports of 530 tonnes of raw silk equivalent were far behind those of China (16,040 tonnes) and South Korea (1600 tonnes). Even India's gross exports of nearly 1300 tonnes were less than half of South Korea's and less than a tenth of China's exports.
Estimates for international silk consumption show that India is one of the largest consumers of silk in the world after only Japan, China, the USSR, and the USA. However its per capita consumption of 5 grams of raw silk equivalent per annum was, in 1981-2, minute compared to other major consuming countries including China (9 grams). It is interesting to note that, unlike many other labour-intensively produced luxury goods, a large proportion of silk is consumed by the countries of origin. Thus, the four largest producers-China, Japan, India, and the USSR-accounted for over 70% of consumption in 1981-2 (Table 4).
2. Silk in the Indian Economy
2.1 Production: Growth
Over a 37-year period from 1951-2, silk production in India registered a compound growth rate of 6.6%. This growth rate was high in the early 1950s, but relatively low after that until the late 1970s. In recent years, under the influence of an intensive promotional effort, silk production has grown at over 10% per annum (Table 5).
Being an agro-based industry, silk production is subject to the influences of natural phenomena such as climatic variations, the incidence of disease, and attacks by pests. These factors are responsible for the year-to-year fluctuations in the growth of production depicted in Figure 3.
It is apparent from the figure and from the data in Table 5 that the major contribution to the growth of silk production in India has been made by mulberry silk. The share of non-mulberry silks has declined in quantity terms from 3007o in the early 1950s to around 10% in the early 1980s. While mulberry silk recorded a trend growth rate of 7.5% per annum over this period, non-mulberry production grew at just 3.3%. Within non-mulberry silks, muga silk has shown no increase at all and eri silk production only a slight tendency to increase in recent years. Tasar silk production has grown erratically over the period considered.
Production of economically usable silk waste grows in relation to overall production of raw silk. Though the ratio of silk waste to raw silk can alter (with changes of technology over time), such changes occur gradually. By 1987-8 the quantity of mulberry silk waste had reached 3086 tonnes at a waste-to-raw silk ratio of 0.36. For non-mulberry silks the quantum of usable silk waste was 200 tonnes yielding a ratio of 0.19.
2.2 Regional Distribution
Mulberry silk production in India is largely concentrated in southern Karnataka and contiguous districts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. As much as 90% of production takes place in this region (Table 6). Another 10% of mulberry silk production takes place in West Bengal. In the case of tasar silk also, production is highly concentrated in a contiguous forest area covering southeast Bihar, north Orissa, and northeast Madhya Pradesh. Most of the eri and muga production takes place in Assam and Meghalaya, and oak tasar in Arunachal Pradesh. Thus, three small regions supply over 95% of the country's silk.
Figure 4 illustrates the main silk producing areas of India covering 52,000 villages where sericulture is practised (out of 629,000 villages in India) of which 53% lie in the southern belt and 23% in the north-eastern states where sericulture is largely a self-consumption activity. Out of a total of 2.42 lakh hectares of land under mulberry cultivation, 1.40 lakh hectares are in Karnataka and another 0. 75 lakh hectares in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The area under mulberry cultivation constitutes just 0.15% of total cultivated land in India and 1.20% in Karnataka.
2.3 Employment
The information available on employment in silk production is erratic. The Statistical Biennial of the Central Silk Board (CSB, 1988) puts employment at 57.65 lakh persons for 1987-8. The Seventh Five Year Plan, 1985-90, however, states that 'employment generated in both the agricultural and industrial activities of sericulture during the Sixth Plan would be 1.32 million (13.2 lakh) persons'. The Sixth Plan, on the other hand, shows employment in sericulture in 1979-80 at 16 lakh persons and the target for 1984-5 at 21.50 lakh persons.
Appendix Table 1 contains one set of estimates for employment in silk production. This is based on a 'survey study' undertaken by the premier sericultural research institute in India6 of the operations involved in mulberry sericulture. It estimates that direct employment in mulberry silk production was around 19 lakh person years in 1985-6 on a fully employed basis. Of this, 11 lakh person years were devoted to sericulture and another 8 lakh person years to post-cocoon processes. The authors of the study suggest that indirect employment in mulberry silk production amounts to one-third of direct employment, so that overall employment in the activity would have been of the order of 25 lakh fully employed persons in 1985-6.
Figures for direct employment in wild or non-mulberry silks are more difficult to come by. Estimates for tasar culled from various sources are contained in Appendix Table 2. These suggest total employment equivalent to around 97,000 fully employed persons in tasar production in 1985-6. Employment coefficients for sericulture are much lower in this case, as tasar rearing presently takes place predominantly on forest trees requiring no labour for cultivation or maintenance. The coarse nature of much of tasar weaving means that employment coefficients in weaving are also lower than for mulberry.
Eri culture is mainly a casual spare-time activity, with rearing taking place on leaves of castor plants in backyard plots. Production ranges from 1 kg per family in the Brahmaputra valley to 3-5 kg per family in the hills. Even intensive cultivators report yields of no more than 10-15 kg a year. Weaving is also largely for self-consumption. On the basis of 0.5 metre of production using 50 grammes of yarn a day, the total employment from reeling and weaving eri silk amounts to 28,000 fully employed persons in 1985-6.
Muga rearing takes place out-of-doors, largely on wild plants, by tribal communities in Upper and South Assam. Roughly 10,000 families are reportedly engaged in rearing, with another 8000 reelers, mostly women and children. Assuming (optimistically) one fully employed person per rearing family, this yields employment of 18,000 persons up to the reeling stage. Weaving is similar to mulberry silk, suggesting annual consumption of 50 kg yarn per fully employed handloom requiring 1 ½ persons. Thus, muga weaving provided employment equivalent to 1560 fully employed person years in 1985-6.
The above information is summarized in Table 7. As the Table shows, employment in silk production in 1985-6 was of the order of 27 lakh persons on a fully employed basis. At the same time, it is well known that persons involved in informal production activities in rural areas are rarely fully employed in a single activity and are often not fully employed in economically productive activities. Thus, the actual engagement of persons in silk production and related activities is likely to exceed 27 lakhs by a substantial margin but, in the absence of more reliable figures, it cannot be estimated more precisely than the range of 40-45 lakh persons.
In addition to being a labour-intensive activity combining intensive agriculture with household silkworm rearing and cottage processing, silk production has high female employment ratios. The major activities — mulberry cultivation, silkworm rearing, reeling, handloom weaving — are all family activities undertaken by both males and females, but some operations are more female-labour intensive. These include leaf harvesting and chopping, silkworm rearing in sericulture; cocoon sorting, cooking, floss removal, and filament casting in reeling; pirn winding in weaving.
Table Sa shows the labour ratios for women in Karnataka sericulture estimated by a 1981 study. Table 8b shows the ratios in raw silk production in Karnataka, Bihar, and West Bengal as indicated by the 1961 census. Female labour ratios in Karnataka sericulture range from 44% in rain-fed mulberry areas to 57% in the irrigated mulberry areas of Mysore district. The variation is related not only to the type of agriculture, but also to local tradition with variations between districts, talukas, and parts of a taluka. Female employment, at over 58%, appears to be highest in West Bengal silk production. Another estimate of women's employment in Karnataka sericulture places their labour contribution to the activity at 54-62%.
3. Trade Orientation
Silk production in India has been largely geared to domestic consumption. Tables 9a and b present a comprehensive picture of the availability and utilization of silk in India. As these show, overall availability of silk has been considerably augmented in recent years by growing imports of both reeled and spun-silk. In 1987-8 these imports accounted for around 17% of overall availability and are estimated to have reached the level of 2,000 tonnes.
In the absence of more precise data, domestic consumption has to be assumed to be equivalent to domestic availability. It is clear from Table 9b that 80-90% of all available raw silk is consumed domestically. Indeed, over the past few years, domestic consumption of raw silk has sometimes actually exceeded domestic production as imports have grown.
Silk exports are in the form of either fabric or made-up goods, as exports of raw silk and spun silk are not allowed. These exports have also grown rapidly in recent years, reaching nearly 2200 tonnes of raw silk equivalent in 1987-8 at a growth rate of 12.7% per annum over a 16-year period. Silk waste is also exported, depending on domestic availability relative to requirements, largely as a means of preventing an excessive build-up of stocks when the domestic spun-silk industry is unable to process it.
In value terms, exports have grown at an annual rate of 24% at nominal prices over the past decade and have already crossed the Seventh Five Year Plan target figure of Rs 200 crores. Even in real terms, growth has been high at the rate of 12.1 %; this suggests an improvement in price realization at the rate of nearly 6% per year.
The contribution of silk exports to overall foreign exchange earnings has also been growing from just 0.5% in 1976-7 to over 1.6% in 1987-8. Silk is now a significant contributor to export earnings. In 1988-9, these earnings grew by over 29% to Rs 330 crores, expanding the surplus contribution of silk to the trade balance and enabling increased imports of capital goods for other sectors of the economy.
With large quantities of raw silk being imported in recent years, the balance of trade in silk acquires importance in the context of the net contribution of the activity to the economy. Table 10 shows that the value of silk imports has grown from just Rs 3 crores in 1978-9 to over Rs 40 crores in 1986-7. Despite this rapid growth, the net trade surplus in silk has expanded from just Rs 41 crores to as much as Rs 161 crores. In real terms (adjusting for inflation), this amounts to an expansion by a factor of 1.95 or a healthy growth rate of 8. 7o/o over the 8-year period.
CHAPTER 2
Products and Production Systems
The production chain for mulberry silk production was outlined in the Introduction. This chapter focuses on the production systems employed for silk production in India, the infrastructure — particularly in Karnataka for mulberry — and the resulting products. Methods of production employed for non-mulberry sericulture are outlined where relevant. Later in the chapter, the products of Indian silk and their markets are discussed.
1. Sericulture
While detailed figures for sericulture in the country as a whole are not available, the Karnataka figures of 2.22 lakh families directly engaged in sericulture with 1.32 lakh hectares in 1985-6 suggests an average plantation size of 0.6 hectares (roughly 1.5 acres). Another 3.24 lakh families are reported to find indirect employment in the activity — presumably as wage labour.
Silkworm seed production in 1986-7 was undertaken in Karnataka by 78 government established grainages and another 632 private seed preparers licensed for the purpose by the government. Roughly 50% of disease-free layings produced under controlled conditions are supplied by the government. Chawki rearing centres for early-age rearing of silkworms have been established in 1700 villages of the 14,500 sericultural villages in the state. There are 43 regulated cocoon markets established by the State Government. (The operations of these are discussed in Chapter 3.) Cocoon markets are usually located in urban or semi-urban areas with concentrations of reelers.
Tasar rearing takes place almost entirely on wild asan and sal trees in forest areas where the local aboriginal tribal inhabitants brush their domestically prepared seed on to the trees during the rearing season. As much as 60"7o of seed is provided by traders and only 10% is produced in controlled grainages.
The outdoor rearing of tasar worms results in a fluctuation of cocoon production as the worms are particularly vulnerable to climatic conditions and attacks by pests and parasites. The scattered natural occurrence of food plants and increasing deforestation have also contributed to limitations on rearing capacity.
Tasar cocoons are sold by the tribal rearers at weekly hats (informal markets) to mahajans (traders/moneylenders) who generally maintain an exploitative credit relationship with them. The marketing system is said to be 'conspicuous by the absence of competition among mahajans and bargaining capabilities among the tribals.'
2. Reeling
Mulberry reeling takes place within a few days of harvesting cocoons in order to prevent deterioration and to minimize wastage. It is, therefore, not surprising thar reeling capacity is distributed regionally in similar proportion to the production of silk. The distribution of capacity for mulberry silk reeling is presented in Table 11. In each case, the reeling capacity is in fact significantly higher than actual production. It is only in the case of Andhra Pradesh that reeling capacity is lower than production (by more than 70%). This indicates the extent to which Andhra Pradesh cocoons find their way to Karnataka (particularly Ramanagaram), where the markets are more competitive and prices consequently higher.
By type, the traditional reeling charkha which has been in use for many centuries still dominates in terms of numbers, accounting for 55% of overall capacity. The cottage basin produces better-quality silk, but if manually operated is restricted in size to a maximum of 5 basins. Cottage basins account for 23.5% of reeling capacity, with mechanically operated filatures providing the remaining 16.5%. The latter can have more than 25 basins per unit, providing higher productivity, but they produce only a slightly better quality of yarn than cottage basins. At present, most Indian filature units are equipped with obsolete machines. The sophisticated automatic reeling machines used in Japan and Korea cannot be economically operated with the cross-breed multivoltine cocoons which predominate in Indian mulberry sericulture.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Development of Indian Silk"
by .
Copyright © 1990 Intermediate Technology Publications.
Excerpted by permission of Practical Action Publishing Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Preface, v,
Acronyms, ix,
Glossary, xi,
INTRODUCTION: SILK IN A CHANGING WORLD, 1,
CHAPTER 1: SILK IN INDIA, 14,
CHAPTER 2: PRODUCTS AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS, 18,
CHAPTER 3: THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT, 46,
CHAPTER 4: TECHNOLOGY ISSUES, 60,
CHAPTER 5: MICROECONOMIC ISSUES IN SILK PRODUCTION, 72,
CHAPTER 6: MAXIMIZING DEVELOPMENT IMPACT, 83,
CONCLUSION: LESSONS FOR TROPICAL, 95,
Appendix Tables, 98,
Bibliography, 101,