The cocoons produced in the silkworm-raising factory in Shengzhou, Zhejiang province [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

At a time when rising costs are forcing many farmers to exit sericulture, a silkworm-raising factory in Shengzhou, East China's Zhejiang province is breathing new life into an industry that is thousands of years old.

Babei Group, a private silk necktie-producing enterprise, announced on Jan 20 that its first batch of mass-produced silkworm cocoons had rolled off production line, marking the success of a seven-year-long research on factory-raised silkworms.

With a total investment of 350 million yuan ($51.5 million), the company's silkworm workshop is able to churn out 10,000 metric tons of high-quality cocoons annually, about the total yield of 100,000 households of farmers, using less than 200 workers.

The germ-free workshop, covering an area of 5,000 square meters, creates a favorable environment with moderate temperature, airflow and humidity for the silkworms.

Instead of mulberry leaf, the worms are fed artificial fodder made of ingredients such as soybean, corn powder, sweet potato starch and vitamin complex.

The fodder is cheap to produce, and it helps improve the efficiency of silkworm raising for it is free from the limits of seasons and climate, according to Meng Zhiqi, a researcher with Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and leading researcher of the project.

In order to boost silkworms' appetites, researchers have added mulberry leaf powder into the fodder to make it more "delicious."

Sericulture, the breeding of silkworms to produce raw silk, has long been a featured industry of Zhejiang Province, but it has been on a downward trend in recent years.