The sericulture and silk industry in southern Shaanxi is at a critical crossroads: between a traditional farming model that has endured for millennia and the demands of a modern, scaled, standardized, and intensive industrial cluster. A recent special investigation by Ankang City into the industry's upgrade to a modern sector has laid bare the specific pain points and opportunities in this transition.
Real-World Challenges in the Industry Belt The investigation covered core production areas including Hanbin District, Pingli County, Hanyin County, and Shiquan County, which form the base of the southern Shaanxi sericulture belt. Feedback from the investigation points to multiple bottlenecks. Upstream, weak infrastructure (water, electricity, roads) in mulberry orchards and insufficient improved seed breeding bases directly constrain the quality of cocoons at the source. Midstream, urgent technical upgrades for reeling and weaving enterprises are hampered by inadequate investment attraction and policy implementation, with mechanized and intelligent sericulture equipment penetration remaining low. Downstream, sales channels are narrow, brand premium is limited, and products mostly stay at the primary processing stage.
For buyers, this means current quality fluctuations in cocoons from southern Shaanxi are significant, with poor batch-to-batch consistency, directly affecting the willingness of high-end fabric and apparel brands to source. For mills and garment companies that rely on stable, high-quality raw materials, Shaanxi silk currently serves more as a supplementary source rather than a core supplier.
Policy and Technology as Dual Drivers The investigation explicitly proposed several key measures with clear industrial logic. First, promoting labor-saving sericulture, collective rearing of young silkworms, and the '9215' grain-silkworm composite model aims to boost per-mu yield without increasing labor costs. For factories, this means improved stability of upstream raw material supply in the long term, but short-term training costs and adaptation periods are inevitable.
Second, increasing support for technical upgrades and agricultural machinery subsidies for reeling and weaving enterprises directly targets reducing midstream processing costs and improving product fineness. The adoption of intelligent equipment will reduce reliance on skilled labor, a critical factor given the aging workforce and recruitment difficulties in southern Shaanxi. Concurrently, ensuring land use for new or expanded standardized sericulture bases and processing parks removes a key barrier.
The diversification strategy extends the sericulture chain from pure agriculture and industry into services. Deeply exploring the cultural heritage of sericulture and integrating it with tourism, health and wellness, and e-commerce essentially seeks new profit growth points, reducing dependence on single cocoon prices. Areas like Shiquan County, which already have a solid tourism foundation, are poised to pioneer a composite 'farming + processing + tourism + wellness' business model.