Handicrafts: Plight of an industry that has global recognition
Coconut-shell handicrafts from a craftsman in Kandy
The craft sector is one of the most underutilised and underprivileged industry sectors in Sri Lanka although local craftsmen have innate talents that are in their DNA. The handicraft industry’s key manufacturers and raw material suppliers are operating in an informal environment with lack of capacity to market their products and to promote their own brands. Lack of national level strategies along with integration mechanism further deteriorates the existing industry. Most of these industries have been in existence for more than 1000 years ago and the geographical concentration of different products further supports the historical presence of this industry and cultural influences on products. As the industry is at a primitive stage, most of the manufacturers do not have the financial capacity to carry out; assessment of customer needs along with innovative product designs and production techniques using environmentally friendly raw materials with limited involvement of technology, strengthen nature of operating environments; and have limitations in scalability of operations and ethical and sustainable practices in the industry.
Labour intensity, high skills and innate talents are the major factors that contributes to the uniqueness of the industry along with the cohesiveness and harmony it brings to the society as many are family-based cottage industries. Further many products do have a regional specialisation. As some handicrafts do not have a good demand, many craftsmen do this as a part-time job along with another job to provide them with adequate funds for their livelihood. More than 15,000 artisans and craftsmen are there in Sri Lanka and it provides a substantial indirect employment as well. This will be an ideal industry to promote local products and industries in the country and a solution for low income generating segments and empowerment of women for entrepreneurships of the country too to address the problem of poverty.
Currently Sri Lanka does not have national level policies and frameworks for the crafts sector namely: a) National Export Strategy (NES) with the Global Marketing and, b) Lack of national level integrated strategies to develop and market products. The plight of this industry is not a widely spoken topic in the country through any form of media as the impact is mainly felt for the low-income earning segment of the population. Countries like India or China do have a substantial contribution to their economy from the craft sector.
Current state of the industry
Presently the handicrafts industry in Sri Lanka entails adaptations and transformation from traditional designs to contemporary models and designs. Handicrafts are mainly at one end a handed-down tradition and at the other end it transforms into modern designs and new craftsmen are emerging with new designs that suit the modern world. However, whether our craftsmen are successful in attracting the modern world and young generation into crafts that are produced through gold, silver, bronze to wood, rush and reed, bamboo and etc are questionable. The industry is yet to embrace and get into innovations.
Lack of technology adaptation, lack of unexplored export markets and scarcity of raw material further have a significant impact on this sector, thus the potential of this sector is not assessed and explored appropriately in a coordinated and structured manner. Further, scarcity of the materials is a significant issue eg: batik dyes, fabric, cane, bamboo, mangroves (unsustainable raw materials).
Demand for crafts
Innovative materials such as banana fibre, cinnamon wood, metal, iron etc along with recycle and environmentally friendly materials are being used seldomly by the manufacturers. Our product designs and quality do not attract the younger generation to buy handicrafts. Gem and jewellery also fall under the handicrafts segment if those are manufactured by using hand. In European and developed countries such products have a huge demand irrespective of the age of customers. With digitalisation and automation, people are now looking for more handmade products than machine or robotic made products.
However, unfortunately Sri Lankans do not value such products and the demand for such products are very low by the locals. As the tourism industry is heavily hit by the pandemic, many craftsmen are reskilling themselves for different industries. It clearly indicates that our craftsmen used to mainly cater to the tourism industry where they manufactured ornamental and souvenir type items for tourists though there is a huge variety of items with utility values that could be developed by the manufacturers.
Unethical practices when
tourism industry was flourishing: Imported crafts
Handicrafts are being sourced by large high-end retailers who are mainly catering to tourists. In addition to large retailers who are based in Colombo, Kandy and Galle, there are small shops that sell handicrafts to tourists through retail shops located around the vicinity of travel attractions in Sri Lanka. All the sellers including the high-end retailers labelled these products with fake Sri Lankan country of origin as many used to bring machine made products and imported items from South East Asian countries. These machine-made products are made in these South East Asian countries with the assistance of these high-end retailers as prototypes are sent as samples in order to manufacture them in bulk quantities.
Pricing of handicrafts by retailers
The pricing strategy of retailers that was in existence when the tourism industry was doing well did not provide a considerable benefit to the craftsmen as retailers used to keep substantial mark ups from these products as their main target group was foreign tourists. This pricing strategy of handicrafts made it an inaccessible product leaving handicrafts a luxury item for locals. Retailers had to pay high “commissions” to tour guides, and “technical fees” for corporates for selling these products to tourists. Due to this pricing strategy, retailers used to invariably bargain these products from the craftsmen and also used to buy with long credit periods which could extend up to more than six months. For some items that have a huge demand, middlemen used to purchase these items and re-sell by creating a scarcity in the market to manipulate prices. Due to low prices offered to suppliers, most manufacturers are heading towards unsustainable production methods.
Unstructured vocational training
There is no standard mechanism to take this industry forward with a structured vocational and education plan other than trainings conducted by the National Craft Council.
Deforestation
Some unsustainable methods create a considerable impact to the environment especially wooden crafts and furniture which are manufactured without having a replantation and/or reforestation strategy on mangroves, bamboo forests, large teak, mahogany trees etc.
Ethical consumerism
Many foreign tourists and locals who patronage shops with extravagant retail merchant displays are ignorant of unethical practices. Hardly any retailer demonstrates ethical sourcing and fair trade of these crafts except for good market fairs organised on Saturdays by civil society movements which had already obtained fair-trade certification. However, the impact this can create to the industry could not be that significant as only a small number of people from high-end society visit these fairs as weekend outings prior to travel restrictions. Further only a small number of craftsmen patronage this fair but master craftsmen with quality products stay away from these ad-hoc fairs. The reason for them not visiting these craft fairs is that they do not want their products to be seen as roadside products and further they would want to focus more on their production than trying to sell their products on their own.
Way forward
The integration of the value chain process of the industry should be strengthened. Starting from identification of the customer requirements for products that do have utility values and designing them accordingly should be the key to the development of the industry. Absence of this will have a huge impact to the country as the customers will not currently buy what the craftsmen produce.
Craftsmen still think that what they produce is good quality and people should buy what they manufacture, and the Government should force people to buy them. This is an old selling concept that they still follow. Hardly any craftsmen makes an effort to assess the customer requirement and cater to the customer needs. Hence, the customer needs the identification process and the designing should be strengthened to develop this industry. However, capacities of the craftsmen prevent them doing this individually, hence civil societies and the Government should focus on assisting them with designing products. After designing the products, manufacturing methods could be transformed by using innovative tools and techniques. Modern engineering 3D designing software can also be used to design the products with technical specifications. Existing informal and primitive methods do have a negative impact the industry.
In Sri Lanka the Government has imposed many import restrictions to promote local industries, however there was no concerted effort to develop these industries. Introducing many cabinet portfolios for different industries lately is a positive factor towards this industry but the positive impact of creating a separate ministry for batik is yet to be felt in the country as we have not seen many wearing batik dresses after it was incorporated, not even by the politicians during any occasions. Although mainly Government sponsored trainings are being conducted for batik an existence of a strategy to classify the products as per their quality and sustainability is doubtful as the high-quality batik producers are complaining about the low quality products entering the market which will have a negative impact on the entire batik industry.
The industry needs to be promoted through an aggressive promotional mechanism. Without a proper promotional and communication plan, consumers will not be aware of the existence of such products in the country with affordable pricing for the locals as many customers still believe the handicrafts are for tourists.