Sericulture Development in Thailand.

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyze the productivity as well as the efficiency of existing technology and practices of the silk industry at both the village and town levels with regard to improve the production and marketing of silk products. The study results revealed that indigenous raw silk produced by most farmers was not suitable for warp production. The cost of production of silk by traditional farmers was about 5% higher than that of the commercial ones; while the productivity of the commercial sericulturist was due to mainly to the lack of high-yielding silkworm eggs and high-yielding mulberry varieties. A poor technical know-how in sericulture cultivation was also found among traditional sericulturists and extension workers. The conversion ratio from cocoons to silk yarn and the labor costs in yarn reeling (processing) differ between the traditional and commercial farms. For the production cost of silk material, on the average, the cost per designed material was higher than of solid material. It was found that a greater expansion of silk industry had a substantial impact on sericulture development. The quick introduction of new technology necessarily caused a dual structure in Thai sericulture. A comparison of the cultural practices and the cocoon output received between the traditional and commercial sericultural farms indicated that the cocoon productivity of commercial farms was substaintially higher than that of the traditional farms. A very distinctive difference between these two groups of sericulture farmers was that in one crop, a commercial farm could raise silkworms of higher yield than a traditional farm while applying more chemical and used more mulberry leaves. A commercial sericulturist received more training than the traditional sericulturist and cocoon productivity was 10 times more than of the traditional one. A test of productivity difference also confirmed the superiority over traditional technology of the high-yielding, high-input technology employed by commercial sericulturists. Factors influencing the adoption of such a new technology included, the level of silk knowledge of technical know-how of rarmers and the farmer’s training participation.