A STUDY ONROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN SERICULTURE AND PERCEPTION OF FARMERS TOWARDS AI IN KASHMIR VALLEY

Sericulture, the science and practice of rearing silkworms for silk production, integrates agriculture and cottage industry through mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing. It is one of the oldest agro-based industries, providing sustainable livelihood opportunities to millions of rural families while producing natural silk, an eco-friendly fiber of global economic and cultural importance. However, the sericulture value chain remains largely labour-intensive and highly sensitive to environmental fluctuations and disease outbreaks. Recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) devices and artificial intelligence (AI) offer practical routes to modernize sericulture by enabling real-time environmental monitoring, automated disease detection, precision feeding, predictive yield forecasting, and objective cocoon grading. This study explores the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sericulture, India's significant agricultural sector. AI's potential to enhance sericulture productivity, quality, and sustainability is examined. We discuss AI-powered tools for mulberry cultivation, silkworm rearing, and cocoon quality assessment. To assess the perception of farmers towards AI, a well developed validated questionnaire was used to collected the information from 400 farmers selected at random from Kashmir valley. The data collected was analysed statistically and findings of our study suggested that use of AI can significantly improve sericulture's efficiency and profitability.