Ramanagaram, Channapatna, Devanahalli, Nelamangala and Hoskote around Bangalore, and several villages near Mysore, used to produce 50 per cent of the state's silk. But, this year there is almost 20 per cent fall in the production due to many reasons such as booming IT and real estate industry, urbanization etc.
The official figures from the State Sericulture Department say that the area under mulberry cultivation in the State had decreased from 91,000 hectares to 77,000 hectares in the last one year.
One of the reasons for this shrinkage is the rapid urbanisation in traditional mulberry growing regions like Devanahalli, Anekal, Vijaypura, Kolar and other areas in and around Mysore district. Also, the rising input and labour costs, besides competition with imported Chinese silk had forced thousands of farmers to uproot mulberry cultivation and abandon sericulture all together. The decline in area under mulberry cultivation and the consequent decline in cocoon production had put an estimated 3,500 silk reelers out of a job.
After IT boom in 2000, majority of traditional sericulture tract in and around Bangalore and Mysore have disappeared mainly to accommodate IT and other allied activities. In Bangalore-Mysore belt alone, nearly 25,000 farming families who were cultivating mulberry on 40,000 acres have sold their lands for industrial purpose.
Silk production in Karnataka used to account for almost two-thirds of the country’s output till a decade ago. The State’s silk output for 2008-09 was 7,238 tonnes against the country’s total production of 18,370 tonnes.
The new low in Karnataka’s silk production comes at a time when other silk producing States like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been gradually increasing their output year after year. The gap between Karnataka and other silk producing States is narrowing down with Andhra Pradesh producing 4,512 tonnes last year.
With these prevailing trends, silk production in Karnataka, which accounts for almost 60 per cent of the country’s raw silk output, is feared to decline by about 1,000 tonnes.
