With 396,000 mu of mulberry fields and 18 cocoon silk processing enterprises, Yizhou District in Hechi City, Guangxi, presents a robust silk industry on paper. Yet behind these numbers lies an uncomfortable reality: most enterprises remain confined to primary processing of white raw silk, with insufficient grey silk dyeing and terminal processing capabilities, forcing semi-finished products to be shipped elsewhere. This means that despite being a major raw silk base, Yizhou has yet to capture the high-value-added segments of the industrial chain.
Industry Status: The Primary Processing Trap
Yizhou's silk industry boasts considerable scale but suffers from structural problems. The district has strong cocoon digestion capacity, but the 18 processing enterprises mostly focus on white raw silk, leading to severe product homogeneity. During a visit to Guangxi Hongji Cocoon Silk Company, the research team observed the entire process from fresh cocoon procurement, boiling, reeling, and re-reeling to packaging. While equipment and experience have formed a system, upgrading requires coordinated efforts in equipment, expertise, and market access—none of which can be neglected.
In contrast, Guangxi Jialian Silk Company offers an alternative path by extending into weaving, home textiles, cultural creative products, and even industrial tourism. This difference vividly illustrates that brand building and deep processing capacity are the watershed for industrial upgrading. For Yizhou, failing to break through the primary processing ceiling means that regardless of raw material scale, the region can only act as a "laborer" in the value chain.
Upstream Transmission: Farmers' Real Pressures
The urgency of industrial upgrading also transmits upstream to silkworm farmers. In Shangping Village, Desheng Town, the team visited small-cocoon co-breeding stations, smart silkworm houses, and typical households. Farmers generally acknowledged the income benefits of sericulture, but faced four major pressures: weather variability, disease risks, purchase price fluctuations, and rising labor costs. These factors overlap, making farmers' income expectations unstable.
A deeper issue lies in the level of organization. In cooperatives, how to allocate and convert mulberry fields, silkworm houses, and labor remains a core challenge. This directly affects the efficiency of connecting smallholders with large-scale production and determines whether standardized sericulture techniques can truly take root. If industry evaluation focuses only on yield data while ignoring risk-sharing mechanisms and grassroots organizational costs, it risks overestimating the actual health of the sericulture sector.
Research Focus: From Observation to Solutions
The joint research team from Central University of Finance and Economics and Guangxi Normal University, under the "Silk Road Common Prosperity Alliance," conducted concentrated visits from July 27 to 30, covering enterprises, exhibition halls, parks, farmers, and government departments. Prior to the field visits, the team identified technological innovations and brand needs in areas such as cold-water silk, mulberry leaf food, and silkworm pupa protein, clarifying that youth practice should not stop at live-stream selling but should design solutions based on real enterprise pain points.
During a seminar with the Yizhou Sericulture Circular Economy Development Center, the team confirmed the industry's bottleneck: overcapacity in primary processing and a lack of deep processing. Local authorities are aware of the issue, but transformation requires time and capital. The team will subsequently produce academic papers, popular science brochures, cooperative operation plans, brand communication suggestions, and micro-documentaries, aiming to translate field observations into actionable recommendations.