India:Growers told to meet supply-demand gap
Author:
admin
PublishDate:
2005-12-19 11:20:00
Hit:
349
BANGALORE: The Central Silk Board (CSB) is keen to increase the ‘lab-to-land’ interaction to ensure that India becomes self-sufficient in raw silk, while speaking at the International Sericultural Commission (ISC) here, CSB chairman H Hanumanthappa said that most of the research output was not being translated into on-field work.
“CSB departments are functioning in compartments. There should be cohesion among all research institutes and only through joint-efforts will the farmer get the benefit of research,” he added.Mr Hanumanthappa said scientists were yet to develop mulberry varieties suited for drought, alkaline, acidic and water-logged conditions, or silkworm varieties suited to humid and disease-prone conditions.
In an indirect reference to the dumping of cheaper Chinese fabric into India, Mr Hanumanthappa said in an era of globalisation, there needed to be some kind of code of conduct between the participating nations that will ensure that interests of the developing world, particularly the farming community (which lived below the poverty line), was taken care of. It would be pertinent to mention that India depends heavily on imports to meet its domestic demand of 26,000 tonnes.