A 300-mu pilot base landing in the water-source protection area of Qilin District, Qujing, is not just a patch for Southwest China's sericulture industry—it may reshape the supply pattern of high-end silk raw materials. On July 30, the Qujing Modern Sericulture Innovation Demonstration Base was officially inaugurated, also serving as the Science and Technology Poverty Alleviation Demonstration Base of the Sericulture and Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Two decades after the East-to-West Mulberry Relocation initiative, the southwestern raw material end finally has a standardized pilot carrier benchmarked against eastern standards.
Background
The base is located in Shuijing Village, covering 300 mu, with four planned sections: new variety introduction trials, standardized cultivation demonstration, improved breed propagation, and sericulture-tourism integration. A tripartite agreement was signed to build a model of 'research institute + leading enterprise + base + farmers'. For the industry, the most critical signal is that 'improved breed propagation' is placed at the core. In the past, southwestern sericulture areas relied heavily on mulberry saplings and silkworm eggs from other regions, leading to poor adaptability and unstable cocoon quality, which directly constrained the raw material stability for high-end silk fabrics and silk home textiles.
Industry Impact
From a chain perspective, Qujing is a typical upstream cocoon-silk production area, with a climate suitable for multiple silkworm rearing cycles per year, and large-scale mulberry gardens already exist in Ciying and Dongshan. But the shortcomings are equally obvious: a lack of localized improved breed systems, and technology extension often relies on scattered agricultural services. With this base, leveraging the technical strength of the Sericulture and Bee Research Institute, the focus will be on mulberry variety selection, efficient rearing models, and cocoon quality improvement. This means the southwestern raw material end will shift from 'relying on weather' to 'technology-driven'. For downstream silk reeling and weaving enterprises, this implies that the stability of high-quality fresh cocoon supply will gradually improve, and raw material price fluctuations may narrow.
More notably, the base also explores mulberry fruit picking, sericulture study tours, and comprehensive utilization of by-products. This is essentially upgrading single-commodity production into a composite value chain. For local farmers, income structures will no longer depend solely on cocoon prices in a single season; for the industry, the development of sericulture by-products may create new profit points, such as mulberry branch mushroom cultivation and mulberry leaf tea, further diluting raw material costs.