Sheep-wool rug manufacturing faces crisis

Phidim, August 25

The erstwhile robust occupation of making traditional hand-knit rugs from sheep wool is in crisis in the eastern hills now that the practice of keeping herds is on the wane.

Making rugs has been a means of livelihood for a number of families in the hill and mountain regions in the east for long.

But as the tradition of keeping herds has declined of late, the resultant lack of wool has threatened the traditional practice in districts such as Panchthar, Taplejung and Ilam.

According to Dikura Gurung, a trader, the places where people would keep their herds earlier have now been put to other uses.

“Where there used to be herds of sheep earlier, there are now plantations of cardamom and other cash crops and herbal plants. As wool has become scarce and expensive, the same has hit our trade as well,” lamented Gurung, adding that a rug made from sheep wool can fetch up to 9,000 rupees.

Phaujaman Rai, a sheep farmer of Ranitar-9, Panchthar, attributed the disappearing traditional occupation of keeping sheep to the lack of grazing land.

“Earlier there was a lot of grassland, so it was quite easy to keep sheep. But as the grasslands have turned into agricultural land and plantations, keeping sheep has become really difficult,” he said.

The rug, popularly called ‘radi’ and still in use mostly in villages, has been replaced by domestic and foreign machine-made products of late.