Question

What are the advantages and disadvantages of sericulture?

Answer 1

In sericulture, the silk worm is reared to produce the yarn. The basic advantage is the money that farmers earn by practicing this. So this is a high yield and high profit yield. Women also handles this cultivation, so this doubles the family income.

A major disadvantage is that the silk produced by a diseased silk worm can be disastrous and can cause huge loss. When the cultivation is practiced of this kind the fertility of soil is lost. 

Answer 2

Explanation:

Advantages and Uses of Sericulture:

Silk:

Thread-like structure from the cocoon is what we call as Silk.

Silk fibres are the primary ingredient in producing Silk Clothes like Sarees etc.

The use of Silk is also in the manufacturing fishing fibres, parachutes, filter cloth.

In the medical field, Silk is very helpful in the manufacturing suture materials and dressing materials.

In the military field, it is used in manufacturing cartridge bags.

It is also used in manufacturing insulation coils of telephone and tyres of race cars respectively.

Silkworm Oil:

You can obtain Silkworm oil from the died pupa.

While this Silkworm Oil is pretty much helpful in the manufacturing soaps.

You can also make them into concentrate cake which is the best feed in the Poultry Farming.

Silkworm Faeces (or) Excreta:

It is a rich source of vitamin E AND K, polysaccharides, amino acids such as lysine and alpha-glucosidase inhibitor.

While with the help of Silkworm faeces, we can prepare Acid-resistant plastic sheets.

You can also mix these Silkworm faeces with cow dung and used in gobar gas (or) biogas production.

Disadvantages of Sericulture | Drawbacks of Sericulture:

Since the Sericulture requires closed rooms, workers have to work in rooms with poor ventilation. This results in the respiratory problems to those workers.

Workers handle the dead worms with their bare hands. This will lead to different illness and infection.

During a process where cocoons are kept in hot water to loosen the silk fibres. During this workers have to keep their hands directly into the water to check the cocoons which will lead to secondary infection.

Workers have to work for longer periods of time, like 12-16 hours a day. This will result in severe back pains and also in legs.

People who do not have proper knowledge will face difficulty in handling the silkworms.