SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

among the marginal and small categories, though with initial benefits of
improving their labour status and stabilising their economic life. Quite a
few who have earlier depended on wage labour to supplement their
agriculture income have become free from the status of wage labour and
moved up to the level of engaging wage labour. This is clear from the
cases that have been cited in the beginning of this chapter while talking
about the mobility in labour status. This, they feel, has reduced the strain
of hard work and 'patronial' dependency on the one hand and enhanced
their social prestige on the other. Many of them have also improved their
living standard in terms of food habits, dress pattern, etc., indicating
their social mobility. Given the opportunity and basic resourceaccessibility,
it is this group which has the highest motivation and
commitment in exacting the maximum returns in sericulture. In other
words, those who have limited irrigated land and adopt a greater portion
of it for sericulture tend to involve themselves more in the activity and
reap good results.
However, the adoption of sericulture by the marginal fanners is
proportionately less as compared to the higher land categories. This is
probably due to certain limitations that they face as the following:
• Lack of suitable soil for mulberry cultivation;
• Lack of or limited source of irrigation;
• Lack of adequate space for rearing;
• Lack of capital for initial investment to establish the mulberry garden
and the rearing infrastructure;
• Lack of access to or of timely availability of credit;
• Lack of access to information and knowledge; and
• Lack of alternative sources of subsistence in case of crop failures.
Thus those who face constraints are not much different from the
,
landless categories except in their accessibility to land. Can sericulture
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