Thousands of rural women are unemployed due to non-timber farming sector becoming inactive

Lahore: With non-timber farming sector inactive in Punjab, 4000 families related to sericulture, beekeeping, medicinal plants and mushroom farming, especially rural women, have become unemployed.

45-year-old Bashiran Bibi and 50-year-old Sughra Bibi, residents of Changa Manga area of ​​Kasur district, have been rearing silkworms in their home for the past two decades. He earns Rs 40,000 to 50,000 every season, but this year he could not get the required amount of silk seed and mulberry leaves were not available due to which the few insects he reared have died. Like these women, the situation of dozens of women living in Changa Manga is also similar.

Changa Manga has the largest artificial forest in Pakistan and is a major source of employment for the local people. Local people have been rearing silkworms and making baskets at home for decades. Apart from Chhanga Manga, people in Chichawatani, Mandi Bahauddin, Kamalia, Toba Tek Singh, Rajana, Faisalabad and Sialkot are rearing silkworms and making baskets at home, who are now unemployed.

The Punjab government made a three-year development plan in the financial year 2020-21 to upgrade the sericulture department attached to the forest department to the directorate of non-timber farming, for which the finance department released funds of 136 million. In the first year of the project at a cost of about 17.5 million, various goals were achieved, including training of farmers, while in the second year, a fight broke out between the Forest Department and the Sericulture Department for the post of Director of Non-Timber Farming. It went to court and now the project is almost defunct.

President of Silk Farming and Traders Association Rana Saeed Anwar says that their target was to provide employment to 100,000 families in the first phase and 1000,000 families in the second phase through non-timber farming so that they can become economically self-sufficient. Mukhtar could be made.

He said that two thousand families were registered within a few months of the project, but now the project has been inactive for almost one and a half years. The project includes sericulture, honey production, cultivation of medicinal plants and mushroom production. Beneath the mulberry trees, bee boxes are kept and in the same area, various types of medicinal plants including fennel, basil, moringa, aloe vera, kalonji, celery and others. At present, all these medicinal plants are being procured from India via Dubai.

Deputy director of sericulture Nida Zahra said that sericulture has not received any funds from the government for the last two years. Japanese mulberry plants and trees that were planted at various locations, including Changa Manga, have become difficult to maintain. He said that the three-year project of non-timber farming was closed by the former Secretary Forest and Wildlife Punjab. The department of sericulture is not working on any project now, however, the matter related to the restoration of non-timber farming directorate is in the Lahore High Court, so until a decision comes from the court, nothing can be said about it.

On the other hand, Secretary Forests and Wildlife Punjab Mudassir Waheed Malik said that at present five places in Punjab, including Changa Manga, where sericulture is already being done, two thousand acres of hybrid mulberry is being cultivated in these areas. It is hoped that the farmers involved in sericulture whether they purchase silk seed from a private institution or the non-timber farming directorate will provide them with seed, will not face any difficulty in rearing silkworms.