The potential for increasing the productivity of Indonesian silk farmers

Abstract

Natural silk is one of the sources of livelihood for rural Indonesians. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, natural silk production has been affected. During the pandemic, the community implements health protocols such as keeping physical distance and physical contact. Meanwhile, the natural silk business is a labor-intensive business that involves a lot of labor, so a strategy is needed in order that silk farmers could continue running their productive business to meet the necessities of life. This paper aims to provide information on the potential for the economic increase of Indonesian silk farmers through sericulture technological applications. The research used desk study, descriptive qualitative, and quantitative methods with the study locations in Sulawesi, Gorontalo, and Java Provinces. The results of the study show that the technology input through the mulberry hybrid and silkworm hybrids can increase farmers’ cocoon production by 21.4% - 36.4% with an increase of silk filament production by 75.4% -358.8% per silkworm box. In addition, the use of mulberry hybrids and standard silkworm rearing room is also a potential for silk farmers to increase the number of silkworms raised with the same resource capital in the form of land ownership area and number of family labor. The application of sericulture technology is indispensable as one of the solutions in increasing the productivity of silk farmers in the pandemic era hence a sustainable socialization of technology is needed.