CSRTI meet with farmers on lack of silk in cocoons inconclusive

• THARIAN MATHEW

RANIPET: The online meeting with sericulture farmers across Tamil Nadu who faced problems of non-spinning of silk by cocoons hosted by the Mysuru-based Central Sericulture Research and Training Institute (CSRTI) recently proved inconclusive with no remedy being offered for the problem, sources revealed.

Sericulture farmers had complained that despite following the advice of CSRTI silk worm larvae were sterile and died on the 18th or 19th day without reaching its full cycle of 21 days resulting in no silk being produced.

Poongavanam, a Ranipet farmer, who participated in the online meeting, revealed that initially scientists blamed farmers for crop rotation or using pesticide other than that recommended by the institute for the issue. “However, they had no answer when we told them that this problem persisted even with farmers who were in the field for nearly 20 years and adhered to the CSRTI norms assiduously.”

Four farmers were allowed to speak and when all of them voiced the same concern, there was discussion between the officials in English, which we could not understand, Poongavanam added.

Finally, when a farmer demanded to know whether the scientists had any answer to this problem, the meeting ended abruptly with officials stating that they would get back once they had an answer, sources revealed.

Poongavanam said that this issue was Tamil Nadu specific, as mulberry farmers in other states did not report such issues. When top sericulture officials at Vaniyambadi were asked whether they would investigate the issue on their own, officials replied, “We have no research facility in TN for sericulture and hence have to rely on CSRTI for such inputs.” However, they echoed what Poongavanam said.