Big time raising of eri silk in Maharashtra in the offing

Bangalore, Dec 22 (UNI) Largescale production of eri silk in the Vidharba region of Maharashtra is on cards with casterseed growers looking to ericulture as an additional source of income.

The Central Silk Board (CSB) will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Gujarat based oil producer who had contracted with two lakh farmers in the Vidharbha region for casterseed procurement.

Central Silk Board Chairman H Hanumanthappa told UNI that the leaves of caster plant was a good source of feed for eri silkworms and the board was in advanced stage of dialogue with the oil producer to take up ericulture also in a big way till the production of yarn.

If the project materialises the production eri silk which was hovering around 14,000 tonnes a year, could substantially touch around 3200 tonnes. This would also pave way for future contract farming in sericulture by huge corporates, Mr Hanumanthappa said.

The oil mill owner had tied up with the farmers in the Amaravathi region and he would be providing them necessary finance and also technical input for rasing caster plants and would pay the farmers a remunerative produce for the price. He was told by CSB that as a by product ericulture could also be taken up with an additional investment. By this the farmers could supplement their income by about Rs 5000 per acre, he added. This could be a boon to the farmers of the Vidharba region where farmers suicides have been reported.

He said that Yavatmal, Nagpur, Wardha, Chandrapur besides Amaravathi were some of the regions which had ideal climatic conditions for promoting ericulture and added that CSB would be shortly setting up a model farm there.

Casterseed could provide about 182 derivatives including 89 which were of medicinal features.

UNI VK MSP SBA KN1614