Government eyeing sericulture as the ‘Jesus’ to Ugandan farmers’ biting poverty

With the tremendous uplift of sericulture in Uganda, over the past few years, the project has caught many eyes including securing itself a soft spot in the eyes of the Government of Uganda.

This has pushed the Government to make a move to empower farmers in the country by supporting the sericulture project so as to boost their incomes and livelihood.

Sericulture simply refers to the art of rearing silkworms for the production of the silk fabric.

Silk, has overtime been graded as the best of fabrics for its quality and expensive nature, and has highly contributed to the rise of many great economies like China, India, Japan, Korea and many others.

Uganda being a promisingly rising economy, has not excluded herself from biting off the profitable chunks that the silk industry parades to all country that have embraced the trade before.

Many moves have been made to boost the silk industry by the government, which has chosen to fund and uphold all activities rendered to the development of the sericulture  industry in the country.

Over 32 sericulture stations have been established in 26 districts in Uganda, distributed in the North, East, Central and Western regions of the country, with 2 stations having fully assembled post-cocoon processing factories, in Kween and Sheema, respectively.

With these factories, government through the lead implementer of the Commercialization of Sericulture Technologies and Innovations Project, the Tropical Institute of Development Innovations (TRIDI), envisions having a complete sericulture value chain right from the cultivation of the mulberry plant (food for silkworms), to the rearing process of the silkworms, production, reeling, reeling of cocoons and processing of silk yarn into fine silk fabrics, which will later be consumed by both Ugandan citizens and the global market, generally.

Hon. Jesca Ababiku, the Chairperson of the Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, says government envisions the sericulture project to be the empowerment for the locals to improve on their livelihood and incomes, which could be a bullet to the biting poverty among farmers through adding value to the products produced locally.

Clet Wandui Masiga, PhD, the Principal Investigator of the sericulture project in Uganda says that, TRIDI looks forward to having the production occur with in the country and returns come in through exportation of Seri-products (cocoons and silk fabrics) to earn the country up to 3.6 billion shillings per annum.  

Sericulture in Uganda has had a great comeback ever since the trade’s great capsize in the 1990s, which had left no hope for the industry, but with this great push from the government and determination of the project Implementers, the industry has promising developments…

Story Compiled and edited by Mercy Scarlet Kigai, P.R.O, TRIDI.