Food, fuel, and timber: How bamboo is becoming 'green gold' for farmers

Bamboo cultivation with modern agronomic practices is proving more rewarding than many other crops, including the highly lucrative ones like sugarcane and cotton

Bamboo, hailed commonly as the “poor man’s timber”, has emerged as a money-spinner for farmers to get a rather fancy epithet “green gold”. Its cultivation with modern agronomic practices is proving more rewarding than many other crops, including the highly lucrative ones like sugarcane and cotton. Recognising its potential to increase farmers’ income, the revamped National Bamboo Mission and the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture are implementing schemes to promote bamboo farming in different parts of the country. Their programmes include measures to encourage the use of bamboo as an alternative to wood in various sectors, and build a value chain for producing, domestically marketing, and exporting bamboo and its products. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog has projected the global bamboo market to be worth around $98.3 billion by 2025. India, being the world’s second-largest bamboo producer, next to China, is striving for a sizable share of this booming market. The country has as many as 136 well-documented native species of bamboo and produces annually about 3.23 million tonnes of this highly valuable and versatile plant.

The cultivation of bamboo as an agricultural crop, rather than just wild produce, was facilitated by the well-advised amendment to the Indian Forest Act in 2017 to designate bamboo as “grass” instead of “tree”. It rid bamboo of various curbs applied to the harvesting (cutting), transportation and sale of trees and other kinds of forest produce. This move is validated by the botanical classification of plants, which places bamboo in the Poaceae (Graminea) family of grasses, which also includes various important food crops, such as wheat, rice, oats, rye, maize, barley, sorghum, and millets. Bamboo can now be grown like any other crop and marketed without any licence, or seeking permission from the forest department, or any other government agency.

Bamboo farming is rapidly spreading in areas like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Western Ghats, apart from its natural habitat in the Northeastern region and West Bengal. The land under bamboo is estimated at over 15.70 million hectares. The Northeastern zone accounts for about 50 per cent of the country’s overall bamboo resources.

Going by recent media reports, the number of bamboo farmers has doubled in Gujarat in the past couple of years. The Maharashtra government has announced plans to expand the area under bamboo farming by 10,000 hectares by offering an incentive of Rs 7 lakh per hectare. This initiative is part of the state’s strategy to create carbon sinks (carbon dioxide sequestration zones) to contain environmental pollution. Bamboo plants are known to be efficient converters of carbon dioxide into oxygen. Studies have indicated they produce oxygen about 35 per cent more than most other vegetation.

Interestingly, bamboo is among the fastest-growing plants in the world. It normally grows by anywhere between 30 cm and 90 cm (1 to 3 feet) in a single day, which makes it one of the most efficient producers of biomass that can be put to diverse uses, ranging from food to fuel. Fresh bamboo shoots are consumed in the Northeastern states as a vegetable, or as an ingredient in other local dishes. Bamboo-based foods are deemed healthy because these are rich in fibre and low in calories. They are known to have a unique flavour, which makes them a culinary delight. Some parts of bamboo plants, including their roots, are believed to have therapeutic traits and are used in the traditional health care systems in the Northeast. Besides, bamboo can be converted into environment-friendly bio-fuels, such as ethanol, or pulped to produce paper. Moreover, bamboo is widely used in the construction sector, both as an alternative to wood and for making scaffoldings, because of its strength, resilience, and flexibility. Its use in making furniture, such as tables, chairs, and beds, besides many other household items, is also growing, thanks to its lightweight, durability, and unique natural look.

In commercial plantations, bamboo is usually sown through cuttings of its culms, or rhizomes, during the rainy season. The harvested plants also re-grow to produce a fresh crop. It takes nearly five years for the plants to reach the harvestable stage. Several other crops, such as turmeric, chillies, and ginger, can be grown in the spaces between the bamboo plants during the initial two to three years of bamboo plantations for extra income. The average annual yield of bamboo is generally 30-35 tonnes of culms per hectare. Well-managed plantations can give higher output, thanks to the use of high-yielding varieties, cash inputs, and good agronomic practices. “Beema Bamboo” is one of the most popular high-yielding varieties of bamboo evolved through biotechnology. Taking the normal price of bamboo at Rs 100 per stick, the growers can easily earn a net annual profit of Rs 75,000-80,000 per hectare. Not many other crops can match such returns.

surinder.sud@gmail.com