A glimpse into the indigenous
wool economies of India
By, Shouryamoy Das
Wool is a versatile fibre — it insulates against harsh weather, withstands rains, can be crafted in many ingenious ways, has great potential use as an architectural material and produces high-quality compost when it degrades. Yet it accounts for only 3% of the world’s textile market. This is quite a pity considering that the production of wool, especially in pastoral systems, has one of the lowest footprints of all textiles fibres. Woollens also last long, need few washes and tend to repel all kinds of grit and dirt, making maintenance relatively simple and frugal. Several arguments can be made to consider wool the fibre of the future.
Our country produces more than 40 million kilos of wool and is one of the top producers of wool in the world.
While, ideally, we should be developing infrastructure to position ourselves to take advantage of the wonderful fibre that wool is, the shocking truth is that most Indian wool is discarded for the want of market demand. When Indian wool is used, it finds two chief uses- as a raw material for traditional woollens produced in a closed-loop local economy, and as a raw material for carpet exporters. Unfortunately, the use of wool in both economies has been shrinking. Many herding communities, traditionally major users of wool, have started moving towards exclusively ritualistic use of wool while the carpet manufacturers have come to be increasingly reliant on imported wool.
The loss of market is due to a shift towards resource intensive yet cheaper artificial fibres. The traditional wool production systems have also been hit by the easing of import restrictions on wool after liberalisation. As things stand, we import wool worth 2000 crore rupees a year! The steady decline of the local wool economy also means that wool artisans have to move to other jobs or other fibres. Many of them have moved to unskilled jobs. A matter of even graver concern is the loss of an important source of income for the herders who have responded by breeding meaty sheep, often at the cost of resilience of the system. Yet, there is hope!
While the traditional wool economies have been shrinking with alarming speed in the last two decades, India remains home to one the most vibrant wool crafting cultures in the world.
The Himalayan region of India produces the finest wool and still finds a ready market. Some private players have even started procuring wool from herders in bulk and marketing the wool in the west which values this wool because it is organic and non-violent. The herders in the Himalayas too continue to find wool better than any other fibre in the cold and wet monsoons.
The arid west of India still has many wool weavers, and Bikaner remains one of the largest wool mandis of the world. Bikaner is also home to around 200 spinning mills that produce yarn for carpet exporters based in Bhadohi, Agra, Panipat, and Jaipur. The Deccan plateau is home to the iconic Gongadi, a textile for all seasons and all uses. The Gongadis are also offered to the Gods and often customised with painstaking skill by the wearers.
India is also home to a bounty of genetic resources housed in pastoral systems. One of the indicators of this bounty is the 43 registered sheep breeds of India. Our assessment also indicates that there may be a few more sheep breeds that may get recognition in the coming years. To put things in perspective, India is home to more than 10% of the total registered sheep breeds in the world. Our indigenous sheep find as much comfort in the icy alpine lands as they do in the hot deserts or the humid coasts!
There is a general trend of decline in the availability of grazing resources in India. We expect that grazing resources will be even more contested in the coming years, a tussle in which pastoralists are often at a disadvantage because they are used to grazing on large swathes of marginal lands traditionally part of the commons. Despite these challenges, the number of sheep in India has almost doubled since independence. This indicates that the practice of herding sheep remains a popular and economically profitable profession. The pastoral communities and the practice of pastoralism also allow for mobility- there are many instances of traditional pastoral communities exiting the trade and newer communities taking their place.
As indicated above, wool can find many uses other than use as a raw material for textiles. For example, wool could be composted to produce high-quality bio-fertiliser or be used as insulation material in built environments. It is imperative that initiatives look at leveraging all the qualities of wool to create demand for indigenous wool as solely the textile market may not be able to absorb such huge volumes of wool.
Shouryamoy Das is an engineer and certified financial risk manager by training. He has been working with development organisations on pastoralism and related livelihoods for the last four years.
