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2008-01-24 15:26:00
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Surviving globalisation Thai silk producers raise their game
A group of villagers in the Northeast is keeping traditional silk production methods alive
It is mid-morning in the village of Sa Luang in the northern part of Nakhon Ratchasima province. Pin Pasuk sits beside a small charcoal fire reeling silk yarn from 30 yellow silk cocoons floating in a pot of boiling water, assisted by her daughter Ann. In a house nearby, Boonsom Chainok is re-winding a skein of yarn ready for dyeing. Another neighbour, Jintana Tinnang, is weaving an ikat pattern into a stunningly beautiful piece of shimmering blue fabric.
These are three of the 90 households in the village for whom silk provides the main source of income. Each of these families is able to make a living from their silk products that at least matches their likely earnings in local towns and Bangkok, yet without having to pay for accommodation, travel and other costs and without suffering the traffic jams and poor air and water quality that they would face in the capital.
Boonsom actually returned from her factory job in the city and says she is happier and better-off as a result.
A few years ago none of this would have been remarkable. Thailand has a long-established reputation for silk production, particularly in the northeast region where skills have been passed from one generation to the next, providing the main or a supplementary income for many thousands of farmers. Even now, silk remains a defining feature of the Thai brand and silk products are widely available in the little town of Chonabot, one of the northeast region's main centres for silk trading, as well as in airports and tourist shops throughout the country.
But there are fewer and fewer villages like Sa Luang. Areas planted to mulberry, essential for feeding silkworms; the numbers of households engaged in sericulture; and the quantities of silk yarn produced by hand rather than in factories, have all fallen by more than 60 per cent since the early 1990s and the downward trend continues.
The reasons for the decline are clear enough. China produces 80 per cent of the world's silk at prices Thai farmers simply cannot match, mainly for technical reasons - silkworms native to Thailand's tropical environment are inherently less productive than their Chinese, temperate-climate cousins.
Import controls have protected Thai producers to a certain extent, but silk yarn is easy to transport and Thailand's porous eastern border means smuggling is a widespread and steadily increasing threat to local producers. Meanwhile better-paying opportunities in the larger economy together with the lure of city life mean fewer Thais find silk production attractive.
Thus much of the silk fabric marketed and sold as "Thai" in Chonabot and most of those tourist shops is in fact woven from yarn brought into the country from China.
How have some villages been able to survive the tsunami of cheap imports? Though in many ways a typical Isan village, Sa Luang has been fortunate in one important respect. Three years ago a few members attending a sericulture training course came to the attention of Silk Net, a network of 40 silk-producing communities spread over four northeastern provinces that has been instrumental in raising standards and linking with demanding but well-paying international markets for silk products.
Silk Net has been running successfully for six years, the sustainable remnant of an international rural development project. Its main driving force has been Tidarat Tiyajamorn.
"In the past, people tried to help the villagers by improving the technical aspects of their production," says Tidarat. "But for us, building strong community organisations was our starting point. With those in place it was possible to help the farmers reorganise their production and focus on their strong points, which vary from village to village."
Crucially, Tidarat was able to enlist the help of a skilled Dutch textile designer, Mia Geysens, who not only had a keen eye for trends in international fashion markets but was also sensitive to both the potential and the limitations of the villages.
"Once the foundation was laid we began to realise that better design, quality and consistency of our products were the real requirements for surviving," Tidarat explains. "We could not rely only on efficiency and price differences. With good, modern designs that were not too demanding for the farmers' technical and organisational skills, we were able to approach buyers who appreciate and will pay a premium for good quality products."
Together with the villagers, Tidarat and Geysens worked on simple patterns with fewer and more muted colours compared to the fabrics more typical of the region. They also made creative use of the varying textures resulting from different reeling techniques, which had the serendipitous benefit of creating uses for yarn that would otherwise have been wasted.
The villagers were not always convinced that these new ideas would work. "At first we saw the new designs as strange and we did not believe we could sell them," says Oraphin Phiewphai, marketing coordinator of the Sa Luang group. "We only agreed to try these new ideas because Silk Net committed its money."
A few kilometres away, the village of Hua Fai in the neighbouring province of Khon Kaen and also a Silk Net member, has taken a different route to building a successful rural business, one that resonates with other international trends. After a series of technical problems, these villagers cut their ties with and dependence on government sources for laboratory-reared hybrid silkworm eggs and returned to their native varieties and traditional, organic rearing methods.
"Our own silkworms have some disadvantages compared to the ones we got from the government," explains Jarun Prachakoon, one of the group's leaders. "But producing the eggs ourselves gives us more flexibility according to the time when we can be productive as well as in supplying what our buyers want."
Avoiding the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides both in the mulberry plots and in feeding and caring for the silkworms has also brought advantages. According to Jarun, the mulberry plants seem to be less susceptible to disease, and the silk cocoons are larger than those that these varieties of worms usually produce. Eventually there may be a price premium for organically raised silk, once a credible production audit system is in place.
"We looked carefully into the way the villagers reel the yarn from the cocoons," says Tidarat. "By making a few adjustments we have been able to reduce the amount of waste and produce a kind of yarn with a distinctive texture that our buyers like."
With these changes in place, the group decided to restrict their production to yarn or raw silk, rather than fabric. They sell the yarn to other Silk Net members and to other weavers who appreciate the quality of their work and are prepared to pay a premium for it.
"Producing fabric would mean getting involved in dyeing and weaving, and that takes a lot of time and a different set of equipment and skills," says Worawut Khumwongkha, the local sub-district chief who has been a key supporter of the group. and who was recently recognised as an "outstanding officer" by the Ministry of Interior for his role in helping to revive local sericulture. The ikat technique, which involves tie-dyeing the weft yarn before weaving it into intricate patterns, is extraordinarily time consuming. ''Our connections with reliable buyers who place regular orders and are willing to pay fair prices have made a huge difference,'' says Tidarat. ''Many times I have been surprised at the willingness and ability of the farmers to adjust and improve their production methods, and to work very hard, once they are confident they will be able to sell their products.''
It is in the international markets that Silk Net finds the most challenging, but it also offers rewarding opportunities. The Bangkok-based Thai Craft company helped Silk Net and a nationwide network of Thai artisan groups market their products, both through local trade fairs and to international buyers. Among these is the UK company Traidcraft which is dedicated to extending ''fair trade'' opportunities to groups scattered across 30 countries in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
Even so, establishing these links is not enough to guarantee continuing success. For each of Silk Net's groups there are many others within the region that rode an early wave of enthusiasm, often inspired by non-governmental organisations or international donors, then faded once their special support ended, lacking the contacts, communications and marketing skills required for long-term survival.
''We found that we cannot simply continue selling the same products,'' says Tidarat. ''We try to keep up with market trends, and stay ahead of imitators, by producing collections based on a limited set of designs that are attractive, but simple enough for our groups to handle. We market each collection for about six months before introducing the next line in collaboration with our buyers.''
Over-dependence on a single person also carries risks for groups like these, as Tidarat accepts. When she tried to lower her own profile for a while two years ago she found that even the day-to-day coordination of production and marketing began to test Silk Net's more junior officers, and they were not yet capable of working effectively with international partners. Fortunately for Silk Net, Tidarat was able to resume her former role; but she believes the villagers themselves will gradually take more control.
''The way the Sa Luang group's attitudes have changed is a hopeful sign,'' she points out. ''Now they have gained confidence from their initial sales, the villagers have produced their own designs based on similar principles that they have observed from Mia, which they have been able to sell separately from their Silk Net commitments. And they have started trying out natural dyes, also on their own initiative.''
While success might be elusive it can also open new opportunities. There is an almost personal aspect to craft products that leads many customers to want to know more about their origins. The village of Sa Luang has already hosted small groups of Thai and foreign visitors keen to get a more authentic taste of Thai life than the usual holiday destinations offer.
The sericulture group is keen to set up a homestay programme under which visitors will stay in the village for a few nights to observe the daily rhythms of rural life. Homestay programmes are emerging in other enterprising northeast-region villages, serving as additional building blocks for a more vibrant rural economy and society.
Our weaver, Jintana, was recently married and it is entirely because of Silk Net that she can look forward to a productive and creative future in the village with her family.
Boonsom's mother is delighted that her daughter was able to return from Bangkok, and insists that she will not be leaving again any time soon. Perhaps eventually Oraphin's husband will no longer need to live in Israel where he has worked for the last three years as the family's main hope for a secure future.
It would be a poorer world if Silk Net's members or their children end up leading anonymous and undistinguished lives in the city or relying on money sent by absent fathers.
INFO FOR Donations
- Name of organisation: Silk Net or 'Krua Khai Pattana Mon Mai' in Thai.
- Address: PO Box 21 Teparak, Muang district, Khon Kaen province.
- Contact: Tidarat Tiyajamorn.
- Call 08-9622-2915 or 04-334-2060.
- Bank info: Kasikorn Bank, Thanon Nah Muang branch; savings a/c name: Krua Khai Pattana Mon Mai by Mr Sawaeng Yansee and Mrs Tidarat Tiyajamorn; savings a/c no.: 1092 0466 03.
(Note: Silk Net is also in need of volunteers to help with textile design and marketing)
Source:Industry Website
A group of villagers in the Northeast is keeping traditional silk production methods alive
It is mid-morning in the village of Sa Luang in the northern part of Nakhon Ratchasima province. Pin Pasuk sits beside a small charcoal fire reeling silk yarn from 30 yellow silk cocoons floating in a pot of boiling water, assisted by her daughter Ann. In a house nearby, Boonsom Chainok is re-winding a skein of yarn ready for dyeing. Another neighbour, Jintana Tinnang, is weaving an ikat pattern into a stunningly beautiful piece of shimmering blue fabric.
These are three of the 90 households in the village for whom silk provides the main source of income. Each of these families is able to make a living from their silk products that at least matches their likely earnings in local towns and Bangkok, yet without having to pay for accommodation, travel and other costs and without suffering the traffic jams and poor air and water quality that they would face in the capital.
Boonsom actually returned from her factory job in the city and says she is happier and better-off as a result.
A few years ago none of this would have been remarkable. Thailand has a long-established reputation for silk production, particularly in the northeast region where skills have been passed from one generation to the next, providing the main or a supplementary income for many thousands of farmers. Even now, silk remains a defining feature of the Thai brand and silk products are widely available in the little town of Chonabot, one of the northeast region's main centres for silk trading, as well as in airports and tourist shops throughout the country.
But there are fewer and fewer villages like Sa Luang. Areas planted to mulberry, essential for feeding silkworms; the numbers of households engaged in sericulture; and the quantities of silk yarn produced by hand rather than in factories, have all fallen by more than 60 per cent since the early 1990s and the downward trend continues.
The reasons for the decline are clear enough. China produces 80 per cent of the world's silk at prices Thai farmers simply cannot match, mainly for technical reasons - silkworms native to Thailand's tropical environment are inherently less productive than their Chinese, temperate-climate cousins.
Import controls have protected Thai producers to a certain extent, but silk yarn is easy to transport and Thailand's porous eastern border means smuggling is a widespread and steadily increasing threat to local producers. Meanwhile better-paying opportunities in the larger economy together with the lure of city life mean fewer Thais find silk production attractive.
Thus much of the silk fabric marketed and sold as "Thai" in Chonabot and most of those tourist shops is in fact woven from yarn brought into the country from China.
How have some villages been able to survive the tsunami of cheap imports? Though in many ways a typical Isan village, Sa Luang has been fortunate in one important respect. Three years ago a few members attending a sericulture training course came to the attention of Silk Net, a network of 40 silk-producing communities spread over four northeastern provinces that has been instrumental in raising standards and linking with demanding but well-paying international markets for silk products.
Silk Net has been running successfully for six years, the sustainable remnant of an international rural development project. Its main driving force has been Tidarat Tiyajamorn.
"In the past, people tried to help the villagers by improving the technical aspects of their production," says Tidarat. "But for us, building strong community organisations was our starting point. With those in place it was possible to help the farmers reorganise their production and focus on their strong points, which vary from village to village."
Crucially, Tidarat was able to enlist the help of a skilled Dutch textile designer, Mia Geysens, who not only had a keen eye for trends in international fashion markets but was also sensitive to both the potential and the limitations of the villages.
"Once the foundation was laid we began to realise that better design, quality and consistency of our products were the real requirements for surviving," Tidarat explains. "We could not rely only on efficiency and price differences. With good, modern designs that were not too demanding for the farmers' technical and organisational skills, we were able to approach buyers who appreciate and will pay a premium for good quality products."
Together with the villagers, Tidarat and Geysens worked on simple patterns with fewer and more muted colours compared to the fabrics more typical of the region. They also made creative use of the varying textures resulting from different reeling techniques, which had the serendipitous benefit of creating uses for yarn that would otherwise have been wasted.
The villagers were not always convinced that these new ideas would work. "At first we saw the new designs as strange and we did not believe we could sell them," says Oraphin Phiewphai, marketing coordinator of the Sa Luang group. "We only agreed to try these new ideas because Silk Net committed its money."
A few kilometres away, the village of Hua Fai in the neighbouring province of Khon Kaen and also a Silk Net member, has taken a different route to building a successful rural business, one that resonates with other international trends. After a series of technical problems, these villagers cut their ties with and dependence on government sources for laboratory-reared hybrid silkworm eggs and returned to their native varieties and traditional, organic rearing methods.
"Our own silkworms have some disadvantages compared to the ones we got from the government," explains Jarun Prachakoon, one of the group's leaders. "But producing the eggs ourselves gives us more flexibility according to the time when we can be productive as well as in supplying what our buyers want."
Avoiding the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides both in the mulberry plots and in feeding and caring for the silkworms has also brought advantages. According to Jarun, the mulberry plants seem to be less susceptible to disease, and the silk cocoons are larger than those that these varieties of worms usually produce. Eventually there may be a price premium for organically raised silk, once a credible production audit system is in place.
"We looked carefully into the way the villagers reel the yarn from the cocoons," says Tidarat. "By making a few adjustments we have been able to reduce the amount of waste and produce a kind of yarn with a distinctive texture that our buyers like."
With these changes in place, the group decided to restrict their production to yarn or raw silk, rather than fabric. They sell the yarn to other Silk Net members and to other weavers who appreciate the quality of their work and are prepared to pay a premium for it.
"Producing fabric would mean getting involved in dyeing and weaving, and that takes a lot of time and a different set of equipment and skills," says Worawut Khumwongkha, the local sub-district chief who has been a key supporter of the group. and who was recently recognised as an "outstanding officer" by the Ministry of Interior for his role in helping to revive local sericulture. The ikat technique, which involves tie-dyeing the weft yarn before weaving it into intricate patterns, is extraordinarily time consuming. ''Our connections with reliable buyers who place regular orders and are willing to pay fair prices have made a huge difference,'' says Tidarat. ''Many times I have been surprised at the willingness and ability of the farmers to adjust and improve their production methods, and to work very hard, once they are confident they will be able to sell their products.''
It is in the international markets that Silk Net finds the most challenging, but it also offers rewarding opportunities. The Bangkok-based Thai Craft company helped Silk Net and a nationwide network of Thai artisan groups market their products, both through local trade fairs and to international buyers. Among these is the UK company Traidcraft which is dedicated to extending ''fair trade'' opportunities to groups scattered across 30 countries in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
Even so, establishing these links is not enough to guarantee continuing success. For each of Silk Net's groups there are many others within the region that rode an early wave of enthusiasm, often inspired by non-governmental organisations or international donors, then faded once their special support ended, lacking the contacts, communications and marketing skills required for long-term survival.
''We found that we cannot simply continue selling the same products,'' says Tidarat. ''We try to keep up with market trends, and stay ahead of imitators, by producing collections based on a limited set of designs that are attractive, but simple enough for our groups to handle. We market each collection for about six months before introducing the next line in collaboration with our buyers.''
Over-dependence on a single person also carries risks for groups like these, as Tidarat accepts. When she tried to lower her own profile for a while two years ago she found that even the day-to-day coordination of production and marketing began to test Silk Net's more junior officers, and they were not yet capable of working effectively with international partners. Fortunately for Silk Net, Tidarat was able to resume her former role; but she believes the villagers themselves will gradually take more control.
''The way the Sa Luang group's attitudes have changed is a hopeful sign,'' she points out. ''Now they have gained confidence from their initial sales, the villagers have produced their own designs based on similar principles that they have observed from Mia, which they have been able to sell separately from their Silk Net commitments. And they have started trying out natural dyes, also on their own initiative.''
While success might be elusive it can also open new opportunities. There is an almost personal aspect to craft products that leads many customers to want to know more about their origins. The village of Sa Luang has already hosted small groups of Thai and foreign visitors keen to get a more authentic taste of Thai life than the usual holiday destinations offer.
The sericulture group is keen to set up a homestay programme under which visitors will stay in the village for a few nights to observe the daily rhythms of rural life. Homestay programmes are emerging in other enterprising northeast-region villages, serving as additional building blocks for a more vibrant rural economy and society.
Our weaver, Jintana, was recently married and it is entirely because of Silk Net that she can look forward to a productive and creative future in the village with her family.
Boonsom's mother is delighted that her daughter was able to return from Bangkok, and insists that she will not be leaving again any time soon. Perhaps eventually Oraphin's husband will no longer need to live in Israel where he has worked for the last three years as the family's main hope for a secure future.
It would be a poorer world if Silk Net's members or their children end up leading anonymous and undistinguished lives in the city or relying on money sent by absent fathers.
INFO FOR Donations
- Name of organisation: Silk Net or 'Krua Khai Pattana Mon Mai' in Thai.
- Address: PO Box 21 Teparak, Muang district, Khon Kaen province.
- Contact: Tidarat Tiyajamorn.
- Call 08-9622-2915 or 04-334-2060.
- Bank info: Kasikorn Bank, Thanon Nah Muang branch; savings a/c name: Krua Khai Pattana Mon Mai by Mr Sawaeng Yansee and Mrs Tidarat Tiyajamorn; savings a/c no.: 1092 0466 03.
(Note: Silk Net is also in need of volunteers to help with textile design and marketing)
Source:Industry Website
