Research Trends: Evidence-based policy for bamboo development in India: From “supply push” to “demand pull”

Over the last few years, the bamboo policy in India has undergone a major change. The national bamboo development programme has been restructured with a shift in priority from restoring bamboo forests to promoting farm bamboo and developing its market linkage. This programme earlier with the environment ministry, is now housed in the agriculture ministry. The Indian Forest Act 1927 has also been amended to free the production, harvest and trade of farm-bamboo. The implicit assumption here is that the vast domestic market and industrial use will soak up this supply of farm bamboo. Is removing supply-side constraints and shifting the focus from “forest to farm” sufficient for unlocking the potential of bamboo? This study responds to the lack of information on the bamboo value chain to support evidence-based policy making. Based on an extensive desk review and an intensive field study, we tracked the production, marketing and end-use of bamboo. The study found that over the last four decades, the share of bulk, low-value industrial processing (in paper industry) has dropped from 50% to 18%, while supply of raw culms (mainly in horticulture) has increased from 40% to 63%. The traditional bulk markets of bamboo such as paper, housing, etc., have been largely substituted, and new bulk, assured markets have not opened up resulting in a diminishing demand. The field study mirrored the macro trends with more than 80% of the forest bamboo resource unutilized. We argue that key challenges in bamboo development are in the demand-side and there is a need to create new markets for bamboo by promoting industries that support job creation and farmer incomes both.