The Hindu Business Line : Can bamboo boom?

Last week Kochi played host to a three-day Kerala Bamboo Festival, organised by the State’s Industries and Commerce Department to focus on new trends in the bamboo industry as well as to provide an avenue for the promotion of a range of bamboo products.

According to Kerala’s Industries Minister, Elamaram Karim, over 75 traditional craftsmen from different States (notably Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttranchal and Jharkhand), apart from a large number of artisans from Kerala, took part in the festival. Promising that the government will focus on development of the bamboo sector in the State, the Minister announced that a unit to manufacture bamboo floor tiles, using Chinese technology, will be set up in Palakkad.

Around three lakh people in Kerala depend on the bamboo industry for livelihood. There are about 1,000 species of bamboo.

It is the fastest growing woody plant in the world and is the fastest-growing plant on Earth; it can grow as much as 121 cm (47.6 inches) in a 24-hour period. Many prehistoric bamboos exceeded heights of 250 feet.

Bamboo is used extensively in the construction industry as scaffolding and as a substitute for steel reinforcing rods in concrete construction due to its strength, flexibility and versatility. When treated, bamboo forms a very hard wood, which is both lightweight and unusually durable. Bamboo is also increasingly popular as flooring material, made of bamboo pieces steamed, flattened, glued together, finished, and cut.

There are other myriad uses for bamboo, ranging from arts and craft (fly rods, pens, furniture, baskets, vases, sculptures) to boats and seagoing rafts, and as food, fodder and fuelwood.

In India, much of the pulp used in making paper is from bamboo, just as it is in China. In Japan, Taiwan, China and Thailand, shoots of many species are valuable as food.

Staggering figures

The Beijing-based International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), the world’s foremost organisation devoted to pro-poor development of the world’s bamboo and rattan sectors, estimates that 1.5 billion people depend on bamboo or rattan for all or part of their lives, with global trade worth at least $5 billion a year.

According to Dr Coosje Hoogendoorn, Director General of INBAR, “Bamboo and rattan are excellent resources for combining income generation with environmental protection. In the decade since it was established, INBAR has demonstrated the role of bamboo for rehabilitating land and for conserving watersheds, whilst providing sustainable sources of income for the poor rural growers and processors who rely on it for their incomes.”

Bamboo houses

Bamboo also has a role to play in rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts following natural disasters. The International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan (ICBR) recently built 20 sets of prefabricated bamboo houses to accommodate earthquake victims in Dujiangyan city, in the Sichuan province of China.

Although the 20 houses are all temporary constructions with expected lifespans of 3 to 5 years, prefabricated bamboo panels can also be used to build permanent houses with a service life of more than 50 years, according to ICBR.

Due to its light weight and elastic properties, bamboo is highly suitable for building houses that can resist aftershocks. The advantage with bamboo houses is that they can be prefabricated in large quantities and be easily transported to building sites and assembled quickly. They are thus a very useful tool for post-disaster management.

The Chinese government is encouraging the use of bamboo resources from bamboo plantations as a substitute for timber from natural forests because bamboo is one of the fastest growing and most productive forest resources in the world. The Chinese government believes that the use of more bamboo products from plantations as a substitute for timber will reduce the stress on natural forests and thus contribute to protecting the giant pandas’ habitats.

Despite its lush forests, Kerala has not made much headway in bamboo cultivation and exploitation. Bamboo growing and harvesting in central Kerala are mostly based on reed (Ochlandra travancorica). An estimated three lakh workers, mostly belonging to the lower strata of society, are engaged in bamboo-related activities for their livelihood. Bamboo is extracted from the forest, either gratis or under specified contracts with the Forest Department or the Kerala State Bamboo Corporation (KSBC).

Angamaly, about 25 km north of Kochi, is the single largest centre of bamboo weaving and trading in Kerala, forming a cluster of home-based production units. It is also the headquarters of KSBC, which operates 19 major depots in this town (79 pc of the total depots in the State). The bamboo extraction activities of the Hindustan Newsprint Ltd (HNL) also form a part of the Angamaly cluster.

Last week’s Kerala Bamboo Festival was the fifth to be organised in the State. Perhaps the time has finally come for this humble grass to stand tall and grab pride of place as a useful resource.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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