Sericulture Has Potential to Provide Opportunities to unemployed Kashmiri Educated Youth : Manzoor Qadri , Directior Sericulture Kashmir

Director Sericulture, Kashmir  Manzoor Ahmad Qadri is a dynamic officer , in an exclusive interview with the Mirror of Kashmir Senior Correspondent Rameez Makhdoomi he talks on diverse paradigms of the sericulture picture of Kashmir .

 How will the modernization of Rajbagh Sericulture factory help our sericulture sector in Kashmir ?

The Rajbagh Sericulture factory is not the property of Department of Sericulture . That is the unit of JK Industries dealing with reeling and weaving , we as Sericulture Department are not in domain of reeling and weaving but production of quality Cocoons which act as quality raw material. Since this cocoon feeds on silk worm which is dependent on mulberry tree so we produce , distribute quality mulberry trees . So we give sericulture farmers associated with us quality mulberry plants and silk worm that feeds on mulberry trees, only quality food for silk worm produce quality cocoons .

Few years back both quality vise and market vise our Sericulture farmers suffered . Your take ?

Due to the pandemic of Coronavirus since last year the market of every sector suffered badly.

 When here our cocoon is produced it is auctioned openly here and purchased both by Kashmir based and other state buyers like West Bengal , Andhra Pradesh etc . Last year due to covid pandemic the buyers could not come so the Government acted timely especially Principal Secretary they roped in Jammu and Kashmir industries and they fixed A Grade Cocoon rate rs 975 and B grade rs 675 and this time in our market at Jammu the cocoon rate varies from rs 900 to rs 1100, and when market starts here in Kashmir in August we expect a very handsome rate .

What is our current Cocoon production like ?

The total Cocoon production is 850 metric tonnes , the production of Jammu division is higher than in Kashmir Division . There are about 27000 sericulture  farmers ,18000 sericulture farmers in Jammu and 8500 to 9000 in Kashmir .

How many estimated mulberry trees we have in Jammu and Kashmir ?

There are about 55 lac mulberry trees in Jammu and Kashmir , they are on state land , institution land , private land . Fifty percent of these mulberry  trees are in Kashmir and fifty percent trees in Jammu . We have this number of evaluated trees .

Are our sericulture farmers growing in Kashmir , is motivation there ?

To be realistic neither the number of sericulture is going down nor going much , it is sort of constant figure. You have to understand that sericulture is an subsidiary occupation. It takes just 15 to 20 days in a year the Silk worm in form of incubation is provided to farmers by our Department  .

How can Sericulture help our youth , as unemployment among youth is huge in Jammu and Kashmir?

Since two years as Director Sericulture I have witnessed youth are getting deeply engaged with this activity as they are now aware that sericulture farming takes just 15 to 20 days in a year and reaps great dividends .