The development of Sericulture in the world dates back more than 5 thousand years and Cuba assumes this activity as a sustainable alternative for the development of products destined to the biomedical, biotechnological, cosmetic and textile industries. For which it became necessary to develop its scientific-methodological bases that guarantee its sustainability. Since 2011, the National Sericulture Project has been initiated, with the purpose of implementing an integrated management of silkworm breeding (Bombyx mori L.) on a large scale, for which research was developed in three fundamental lines: 1) mulberry (Morus alba L.) for silkworm feeding, 2) silkworm rearing and 3) applications derived from silkworm cocoon.Eggs have been imported from Thailand, China, India, Bulgaria and Colombia. Currently, we work with the best adapted breeds (Thailand, China and India). Procedures for the detection and control of diseases were implemented, establishing methodologies for silkworm breeding, which are summarized in an integrated management flow. The production of silkworm eggs was achieved in the country.
Extraction methods were evaluated to obtain silk thread and sericinhydrolyzate, achieving a candidate for product and a product respectively, with adequate quality parameters. The sericinhydrolyzate was registered, under license 1305/15, being innocuous, stable up to 18 months and with organoleptic characteristics desired for use in the cosmetic industry.The National Sericulture Project has been executed in collaboration with countries such as India and China, and has been supported by the International Society of Sericulture, of which the country is a member since 2013, opening in 2014 the Center for Scientific and Technical Cooperation Cuba -China.
The results obtained with this Project lay the scientific and methodological foundations for the sustainable development of sericulture in the country and extend the possibilities of this activity as a source of income, incorporating new products to the national market that allow the linkage with different national industries, substituting imports to the country, as well as possibilities of entering the international market.
Sericulture is the set of cultural and economic activities that are developed around silk and its derivatives (1). It is defined as the combination of the cultivation of a perennial plant and the breeding of insects of the lepidopteran order, which produce silk and can be used by man. At a global level, the combination of the cultivation of mulberry (Morusalba L.) and the silkworm of the species Bombyx mori L., is the most developed through programs of breeding, selection and improvement of breeds (2).The raising of the silkworm dates back more than 5,000 years and China is identified as its center of origin from where it spread through the so-called "Silk Road" to other countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, America and Australia (2. 3). In the second decade of the 21st century among the countries with the highest production of silk, are: China, India, Uzbekistan and followed by Brazil, Japan, Korea, among others, with a total annual production until 2014 of 178 039 metric tons (4).
Sericulture is a branch of agriculture in several tropical and subtropical countries, in which it has historical and economic significance and although this activity has existed for many centuries. Mainly in Asia until the twentieth century it focused on the textile industry and since the end of this century and the beginning of the XXI began its period of greater scientific development for the medical-pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries (5).From the global economic contraction to the sumptuous silk product, the obtaining of derivatives has been promoted as a viable economic alternative since the end of the 20th century, being called the 21st century as the century of biotechnology in the sericulture industry to maintain the prosperity of this millenary industry (6).The introduction of Sericulture in Cuba dates from the 19th century (1824-1945), a period in which projects were developed in Santa Clara and Santiago de las Vegas and the Silk Office was founded for commercial purposes (7, 8), demonstrating since then the agronomic and commercial potentials for the establishment of this activity in Cuba (9). However, at the end of the forties of the 20th century, this branch of agriculture was abandoned due to the appearance of a devastating disease called Pebrina, together with insufficient nurseries and mulberry plantations, deficiencies in the breeding houses, lack from spinning machines, to the competition of artificial silk as well as the lack of a scientific basis to face these adversities (7, 8).
After the triumph of the Revolution and from the scientific development of the country, in the 90s, research was developed on the cultivation of mulberry in the Experimental Station of Pastures and Forages of Indio Hatuey (EEPFIH), in the province of Matanzas, Starting in 2001, a project for the small-scale rearing of the silkworm (Bombyx mori L), in order to promote skills in people with disabilities for the artisanal processing of cocoons, thus beginning a new period of Sericulture in Cuba (7) which included the introduction into the country of eggs from Bombyx mori L, considered an exotic organism and submitted to regulations to date by the National Center for Biological Safety of Cuba, CNSB (10).
At the end of 2011, at the suggestion of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, the National Sericulture Project was started in Havana with the purpose of developing a sustainable technology of raising the silkworm on a large scale, encouraging the use of silk thread and obtain by-products for the textile, medical-pharmaceutical, cosmetic and biotechnological industries, taking advantage of the strengths of different scientific and productive institutions of wide trajectory and prestige in the country. The National project that implemented in the Entity of Science, Technology and Innovation “Sierra Maestra”, in order to introduce and develop the sericulture industry in the country.
