Efforts to revive Rwanda’s textile industry have gained momentum after the entry of a South Korean firm.

Heworks plans to build a new silk processing plant expected to revive the sericulture value chain that had gone dormant after the collapse of Utexrwa, the sole buyer and only textiles factory in Rwanda.

To support the initiative, the government has launched a bid to woo farmers back into mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing. The National Agriculture Export Development Board (NAEB) has began buying cocoons from the few remaining but demotivated farmers as part of efforts to revive the silk value chain.

The majority of farmers had abandoned silk farming, replacing plantations with other crops in the absence of a buyer for the cocoons after Utexrw closed its silk processing unit.

Heworks has now entered into a partnership with NAEB, under which the former will invest in both silk cocoon production and processing.

“Heworks will from next month start buying directly from the farmers and ensure timely payment. The fact that there will be contract farming should be sufficient motivation for farmers since it assures them of a long-term market,” said Eric Mbonigaba, the head of the National Sericulture Centre.

Unlike neighbouring countries that grow cotton, Rwanda’s garments industry relies on imported raw materials.

The Rwanda Development Board said Rwanda’s soils and climate are not conducive for production of good quality cotton, but are suitable for mulberry cultivation and silk rearing.

Agriculture ministry officials say the government is putting final touches to designs for a $5 million (Rwf4 billion) cocoon processing factory, which would later be equipped and run by Heworks.

Previously, over 1,600 farmers grouped in 40 co-operatives in different parts of the country were engaged in mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing.

According to NSC estimates, the number dropped to less than 1,200, as many of them were demotivated, reducing the acreage under the crop, which impacted production.

Production dipped from the projected 20 tonnes of cocoons per annum to a cumulative 8 tonnes between 2010 and 2013. Output however rose 15 tonnes in 2014, before peaking at 18 tonnes last year, and is expected to reach 24 tonnes this year.

Mr Mbonigaba said low density of mulberry trees per hectare, small-size rearing houses as well as low technical know-how on the side of farmers, has hampered productivity.

“We still need to get farmers to build up-to-standard rearing houses, and fill the gaps because there should be at least 13,000 trees per hectare,” he said.

The centre indicates that more than 1,453 hectares are currently under mulberry plantation nationwide, against the national target of 10,000 hectares by 2020.

According to farmers however, the sector will have to be lucrative enough before it can attract more farmers to convert farmland back to mulberry cultivation. There is a shortage of government-owned land at most silkworm rearing stations.

Apart from luring individual farmers into the sericulture using what one agriculture ministry official described as “improved working relations with the farmers,” the signed partnership stipulates that the investor would inject part of the $5.2 million investment into acquisition of more land for sericulture.

Mr Mbonigaba said existing sericulture centres across the country would be upgraded and collection centres put up close to farmers to reduce the transport burden.