The silk industry is the most representative characteristic industry in Suzhou and carries profound cultural connotations.
As the “root” of the traditional silk industry, growing mulberry and raising silkworms is Wujiang’s traditional characteristic industry. It has lasted for five thousand years and has created Wujiang’s unique city card.
In recent years, Wujiang District has adopted policies such as ecological compensation measures to stabilize the area of mulberry gardens, expand sericulture production models, promote industrial transformation and upgrading, and strive to retain the “roots” of the silk industry.
To increase the enthusiasm of farmers to plant mulberry and raise silkworms, the country is the first to include mulberry gardens in ecological compensation
78-year-old Pan Yuguan is a villager in Group 18 of Qixin Village, Zhenze Town, Wujiang. He and his wife Shen Xueying have more than 50 years of experience in raising silkworms.
“Now there is more than an acre of mulberry land at home, and spring silkworms are raised every spring, with one silkworm seed each time.” Pan Yuguan told reporters that in the past, in addition to spring silkworms, summer silkworms, early autumn silkworms, and silkworms were also raised. Late autumn silkworms, silkworms should be raised for four seasons a year. When there were many mulberry trees, I once raised 2 silkworm seeds.
Plucking mulberry, feeding silkworms, and removing silkworm pellets, Lao Pan’s family becomes extremely busy during the sericulture season. Lao Pan told reporters that precisely because the work of raising silkworms is cumbersome, there are not many people raising silkworms in the village now, and they are basically elderly people like his wife. “One mu of mulberry land can receive a subsidy of more than 500 yuan. A single silkworm seed can yield 80 to 100 kilograms of cocoons, and 100 kilograms of cocoons can be sold for 2,200 to 2,300 yuan.” One season of spring silkworms can bring more than 2,000 yuan to Lao Pan’s family.
“On the one hand, we can supplement some income for our family through raising silkworms. On the other hand, mainly because of the past decades, we have a feeling that we can’t let go of raising silkworms. During this season every year, we don’t raise silkworms. I always feel like something is missing,” Lao Pan said. This is the reason why mulberry planting and sericulture can be passed down from generation to generation in rural areas of Wujiang.
Zheng Lili, a staff member of the Agricultural Service Center of Zhenze Town, told reporters that this year a total of 1,386 silkworms were raised in the town, including more than 900 silkworms raised by individual households, concentrated in Qixin Village, Xinghua Village, Xinxing Village, and Zhujia Village In villages such as Bang and Dayangang, most of the silkworm farmers are elderly people over 60 years old.
“Currently, there are more than 3,000 sericulture farmers in Wujiang District, mainly concentrated in Wujiang Zhenze, Taoyuan, Pingwang and other areas.” Gu Liliu, director of the Sericulture and Horticulture Station of Wujiang Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau, told reporters, This year, 3,050 farmers in the region have raised spring silkworms, with a total of 3,985 silkworm seeds.
In order to encourage farmers to raise sericulture, Wujiang District issued the “Wujiang District Sericulture Ecological Compensation Measures” and “Wujiang District Sericulture Ecological Compensation Assessment Methods” in 2015 and 2016. The park is included in the ecological compensation area.
As of 2021, Wujiang has implemented sericulture ecological compensation for a total of 27,621.7 pieces of silkworm seeds, involving 23,236 households of sericulture farmers. The cumulative area of compensated mulberry gardens reached 35,522.96 acres, and the compensation amount reached 15.5132 million yuan.
The ecological compensation policy has effectively improved the production enthusiasm of Wujiang silkworm farmers, stabilized the area of mulberry gardens, and promoted the sustainable development of the mulberry planting and sericulture industry.
Leverage the leading role of leading enterprises and explore a new model of integrated development of sericulture, agriculture, culture and tourism
What is gratifying is that in Wujiang, there are two modern sericulture parks with an area of more than 500 acres. This was created by the Wujiang District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau by actively playing the leading role of leading silk enterprises.
Walking into the Taihu Snow Sericulture Modern Demonstration Base in Zhenze Town, Wujiang, rows of well-proportioned mulberry branches are lush and leafy, and the broad mulberry leaves are bright green under the sunlight. Exudes a refreshing fragrance.
Beside the mulberry garden, a long row of white houses are greenhouses for raising silkworms. Entering mid-May, the silkworm babies that have just entered their third instar are quietly “sleeping” on the long silkworm beds. After the fire emerges in the third instar, they will eat whole mulberry leaves in big mouthfuls to save energy for spinning silk and cocoons ten days later.
In recent years, Wujiang has built two modern sericulture parks of more than 500 acres in Zhenze Town and Pingwang Town based on two provincial-level agricultural leading enterprises, Taihuxue and Huajia, to explore traditional sericulture. The transformation of industry into high-yield, efficient and high-quality modern industry.
The modern sericulture park adopts a new model of “company + farmer + base” sericulture production with farmer participation and enterprise standardized management, adopts a new standardized sericulture breeding system with mechanized operations and automated operations, and promotes moderate-scale sericulture operations. Supporting technology.
“We hope that through this large-scale and intelligent approach, we can gradually improve the modernization level of the sericulture industry, create a new model for the industrial development of mulberry planting and sericulture, and develop high-quality sericulture from point to point.” Gu Liliu explain.
It is precisely relying on the profound sericulture culture that Zhenze, the “Chinese Silk Town”, was born. In recent decades, Zhenze Silk Enterprise has continuously introduced new products, accumulated reputation and reputation, and created well-known brands such as Taihu Snow, Ciyun, Shanshui, and Jili with its distinctive and excellent quality.
Currently, Zhenze Town, with its unique silk culture and profound historical accumulation, is exploring a new model of integrated development of sericulture, agriculture, culture and tourism, and launching an agricultural, culture and tourism route focusing on the sericulture and silk industry. , becoming a new highlight in the integrated development of modern sericulture.
Strengthen the protection of sericulture and promote the sustainable and stable development of the industry
While focusing on local development, Wujiang also gives full play to the talents, technology, capital and other advantages of the sericulture cocoon and silk industry in the region, and actively In response to the national “One Belt and One Road” initiative, the development of the western region, and national poverty alleviation strategies, we “go out” for development.
Huajia Group, Shanshui SilkWaiting is the best among them.
In recent years, Huajia Group has developed hundreds of thousands of acres of large-scale sericulture production bases in contiguous poverty-stricken areas in southwest China such as Guangxi, Yunnan, and Sichuan, and has explored a unique “Huajia Model” for industrial poverty alleviation. , helping tens of thousands of local farmers stay away from poverty and live a prosperous life.
Enterprises such as Shanshui Silk went to northern Jiangsu to establish a modern sericulture demonstration base that integrates cocoon production, ecological construction, leisure and sightseeing and other functions. This not only provides enterprises with a stable supply of high-quality raw material cocoons, but also effectively promotes local development. economic development.
Currently, the Wujiang District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau is working hard to guide local governments, enterprises and scientific research institutes to actively carry out government-industry-university-research cooperation in sericulture planting and achieve industrial scientific and technological progress.
The Zhenze Town Government, Taihu Snow Silk Co., Ltd. and Suzhou Vocational University jointly signed a contract to open up the road to cooperation between government, industry, academia and research, and carry out exchanges in industrial technological innovation, sericulture cultural inheritance and transfer of scientific research results. cooperation. Huajia Group and Suzhou University jointly established the “Suzhou University Jiangsu Huajia Silk Co., Ltd. Sericulture Silk Collaborative Innovation Center” to carry out comprehensive cooperation in the fields of new varieties of silkworms, intelligent sericulture and sericin utilization, and continuously promote sericulture. The silk industry pioneers and innovates in various fields.
“Next, Wujiang will use the “Wujiang District Silk Industry High-Quality Development Action Plan (2021-2025)” as a guide to stabilize the sericulture industry, guide industrial transformation and upgrading, integrated development and promote scientific and technological progress As the focus of our work, we will continue to promote the high-quality development of the sericulture industry and promote the rural revitalization strategy.” said the relevant person in charge of the Wujiang District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau.
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