The poor man’s timber, bamboo, is no longer the orphan crop. It is gradually engaging the attention of the government, which has planned to diversify its uses to reap the benefits in the $7.5 billion global bamboo product market.

India is the second richest bamboo resource country in the world, next only to China. In terms of genetic diversity, India has 136 bamboo species under 75 genera. About 89 bamboo species out of 126 recorded in India under 16 genera grow naturally in different forest areas or are cultivated.

Though India has bamboo resources in about 9 million hectare, the yield is low at 3 tonne per hectare per annum as the cultivation is not intensively managed. China has gone for intensive commercial cultivation of bamboo and has increased the average yield to 25 tonne per hectare per annum. Within two decades of the initiatives, China has been able to convert their traditional bamboo-based handicrafts sector into a mechanised one.

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