: The silk reeling unit, supported by the government, on the premises of the Sericulture Department at Kuppam, is struggling to register the projected target, with farmers unwilling to supply cocoons, and showing a tilt towards middlemen working for private units in neighbouring Karnataka.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu prompted the setting up of a the private reeling unit with government support in Kuppam in August 2015, with an objective to cater to the requirement of sericulture farmers in Gudupalle, Shantipuram and Kuppam mandals.
A couple of months after the unit was commissioned, the automatic reeling machine developed technical snags leading to a fall in silk production. The farmers coming to the unit with cocoon stocks were disappointed with the unit organisers taking small quantities from them, this in turn forcing them to take the stocks to Karnataka through middlemen, incurring extra expenditure.
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With farmers gradually losing interest in the Kuppam reeling unit, it began to feel the pinch. As against the requirement of 700 kg cocoons per day, the unit is hardly getting 300 kg now. About 150 workers here are not being able to receive regular payments following a steep fall in production. Taking advantage of this, the middlemen are exploiting the farmers, by offering throwaway prices, but not showing in reality, coupled with delayed payments.
Additional unit
In order to gain the confidence of the farmers again, and to procure maximum stocks, an additional unit, with new machinery was proposed, and it is going to be set up in the coming months, according to sericulture official in Kuppam, Mr. Sivasankar Gowd. At present, the Kuppam region has about 500 sericulture farmers, producing some of the finest cocoon varieties — Bivoltin, Swarnandhra and Gold — to the tune of 80 tonnes involving a business of Rs. 2.5 crore per month.
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Fall in production works to the advantage of middlemen