Current Status, Existing Problems and Future Development Directions of Sericulture in Guizhou
1 Current Status of Development
As a traditional export industry of China, the cocoon and silk industry, since entering the "10th Five-Year Plan" period, has adhered to a market-oriented approach, taken development as its theme, and relied on reform, opening up and scientific and technological progress as its driving forces. By comprehensively applying the state's reform and development policies, strengthening macro-control, and intensifying structural adjustment, it has effectively overcome the phenomenon of "drastic fluctuations," enabling the entire industry to emerge from the trough and basically maintain sustained and steady development. The quality of economic operation has improved markedly, with production capacity, efficiency and export earnings surpassing the best historical years, and the international status and influence of "Chinese silk" have further improved. With the development of China's regional economy and the structural adjustment of sericulture and sericulture production regions, the pace of the "East Silk Moving West" initiative has accelerated noticeably. With the support of national policies, the sericulture industry in the central and western regions has developed rapidly. In 2005, cocoon production in the central and western regions accounted for 58.5% of the national total, up 9.9 percentage points from 2000; mulberry silk production accounted for 40% of the national total, up 20 percentage points from 2000. The "East Silk Moving West" initiative has also brought excellent development opportunities for Guizhou's sericulture industry. In the Qiannan, Qianxinan and Qiandongnan regions, sericulture has developed rapidly in recent years. Huangping and Pingba in Guizhou, with the collaboration of the Guizhou Sericulture Research Institute and the Anshun Silkworm Egg Production Farm, have also applied for and obtained the "East Silk Moving West" special project from the Ministry of Commerce of China, which has played an excellent demonstrative and driving role in the development of sericulture throughout Guizhou Province. The rapid and steady development of Guizhou's sericulture requires scientific and technological support. However, in the past, due to the slow development of Guizhou's sericulture and its relatively low position in Guizhou's agricultural industrial structure, investment in sericulture science and technology was seriously insufficient, and the basic capacity for sericulture scientific and technological innovation was relatively weak, which was highly incompatible with the development of Guizhou's sericulture under the new situation. Therefore, accelerating the construction of basic capacity for sericulture scientific and technological innovation is one of the key issues urgently needing resolution to promote the development of Guizhou's sericulture.
2 Existing Problems
As a traditional advantageous industry in China's rural areas, sericulture production has made major contributions to the development of China's economy. "Silk" is China's "treasure" and a representative of Chinese cultural value. Since reform and opening up, China's cocoon and silk industry has developed rapidly, becoming a major silk producer and exporter in the world at one stroke. However, after entering the mid-1990s, the entire industry encountered great difficulties and underwent adjustments lasting as long as 5 years. It was only after 1999 that the silk industry turned losses into profits and achieved comprehensive recovery growth. But with economic development and the gradual adjustment of industrial structure, the status and proportion of sericulture began to enter a period of decline, and cocoon production in China's main production areas showed varying degrees of decline. In particular, since 2002, affected by intensifying international competition and slow economic growth in the United States and globally, China's silk industry once again faced a severe situation. In 2002, China's spring cocoon production increased by 11.74% compared with 2001, creating a situation of supply exceeding demand, while export demand dropped sharply, causing the entire silk industry—from mulberry planting@#@250@#@, silk reeling and textile production to garment manufacturing—to fall into an unprecedented awkward predicament. Since 2005, the situation has improved, but market fluctuations remain large, and cocoon prices have risen abnormally high. There are still a great many difficulties and problems for the development of sericulture. For Guizhou's sericulture, which is in a stage of recovery and development, it is even more necessary to study the new situation and discover new problems. In view of the reality that Guizhou's sericulture is small in scale, low in level, weak in research capacity, and insufficient in scientific and technological innovation, studying the construction and application methods of an innovation system suitable for the development of Guizhou's sericulture, reducing the impact of cocoon and silk market fluctuations on Guizhou's sericulture, and stabilizing the development momentum of Guizhou's sericulture, so as to achieve steady development amid the "East Silk Moving West" initiative, is currently an important topic.
3 Future Development Directions
3.1 Taking the path of sericulture regionalization
Guizhou is one of the regions suitable for sericulture production and, in terms of cocoon quality, is also one of the most suitable regions for sericulture production. However, this does not mean that every region in Guizhou Province is most suitable for sericulture production. For example, the Wujiang River basin is the sericulture area with the best cocoon quality, but other sericulture areas may not necessarily all be able to produce high-quality cocoons. Therefore, only by conducting regionalization research on Guizhou's sericulture, planning sericulture regions for high quality, high yield, high efficiency and distinctive characteristics, and developing sericulture models suitable for the local area in a focused and targeted manner, can the overall progress and overall efficiency of Guizhou's sericulture be improved, and can the consolidation and stabilization of Guizhou's sericulture be guaranteed.
3.2 Taking the path of characteristic industry development
With the development of colored cotton, natural colored cocoons have also emerged. In the future, making various consumer goods from natural colored cocoon silk as raw material will not only conform to the global trend of environmental protection but also help China avoid foreign green trade barriers, thereby expanding exports. The market prospects for natural colored cocoon silk products from the silkworm Bombyx mori are broad, with extremely strong vitality. While retaining the clothing functions of natural silk, they have also opened up new consumer fields in ethnic handicrafts and tourism products, and have already been accepted by a large number of consumers.
Guizhou is a multi-ethnic province. The ethnic minorities in Guizhou are predominantly Miao, and the Miao people have their own traditional clothing. Women's clothing is mostly woven from self-spun silk. In particular, the wedding dress of a young Miao woman before marriage requires at least 1.5 kg of silk to weave. Therefore, the ethnic minorities of Guizhou have had the custom of raising silkworms and reeling silk since ancient times, and have formed ethnic characteristics, which is conducive to the development of sericulture production.
The Guizhou Sericulture Research Institute, in cooperation with Southwest University, has carried out research on natural colored cocoon varieties and the development of handicrafts, accumulating technical and practical foundations for the research and application of characteristic germplasm resources such as fine-denier silkworm varieties, ultra-long cocoon silk silkworm varieties and male silkworm varieties.
3.3 Taking the path of industrialized development
In combination with the implementation of the "East Silk Moving West" initiative in Guizhou and Guizhou's earlier practice of returning farmland to mulberry, innovating models such as mulberry-medicinal herbs, mulberry-grass and mulberry-grain in sericulture areas where conditions permit, and developing comprehensive development models such as mulberry-medicinal herbs (grass, grain)-processing, jointly with local governments and sericulture management departments, and jointly with qualified cocoon and silk enterprises, to create industrialized development models such as base + farmers, and promote the development of Guizhou's sericulture toward standardization, normalization and high efficiency—only in this way can the goal of consolidating and stabilizing Guizhou's sericulture be achieved.
In summary, taking the path of regionalized, characteristic and industrialized sericulture development is the application of the scientific and technological innovation system in the development of Guizhou's sericulture, a concrete embodiment of using the Party's scientific development concept theory and practice to guide the development of Guizhou's sericulture, and an inevitable choice for the stable development of Guizhou's sericulture.