By Henrylito D. Tacio
Bamboo, the world’s tallest grass and member of the family that also includes rice and corn, can help boost the country’s economy and also sustain the income of those who plant it.
According to Councilor Leonardo Avila III, who used to be with Davao City Agriculture Office, the bamboo industry in the Philippines has the potential to grow “but it needs proper research and government support for it to prosper.”
“The bamboo industry can be another good source of livelihood to our local farmers in the next few years,” the former city agriculture officer said, adding they are planning to include bamboo in the city’s Agro-Industry Program.
“The grass of hope” is how some economic experts are calling bamboo. Although bamboo has been part of their art and culture, it was only recently that Chinese leaders took the plant seriously and is now building a massive bamboo industry.
Avila said bamboo is really a good industry in China, which he visited recently. “Bamboo is regarded as one of the major industries in China,” he said. “It comprises at least 15 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) there.”
In China, bamboo is one of the four noblest plants. The others are orchid, the plum tree, and of course the chrysanthemum. Bamboo plantations are so vast that they cover mountainous terrain. “It shows the development of bamboo in China is very crucial,” Avila said.
“Bamboo is not a weed, it’s a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant,” commented Steve Lacy. Thomas Edison supposedly used a carbonized bamboo filament in his experiments in developing the light bulb. Alexander Graham Bell also used bamboo for his first phonograph needle. “You can eat, wear, and build with bamboo,” said Michael Block.
All parts of the bamboo are utilized to produce sub-products such as foods, charcoal, bamboo fiber, and even bamboo beer. Thailand is one of its main buyers of bamboo charcoal while Japan purchases huge volumes of bamboo shoots.
Avila urged farmers and businessmen with farms to plant bamboo in their farm lots. There’s no need to worry about its market. Domestic market for bamboo alone will be enough to keep the industry going. In Davao Region, for instance, bamboo poles are very useful in many banana plantations. “That alone will keep the industry alive,” Avila said.
Roy C. Alimoane, the director of the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation, Inc. in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, agreed. “We have an abundance of bamboo but we don’t know what to do with it,” he said. “It is so common that we ignore its potentials. Other countries have already seen not only the beauty but the potentials of bamboo.”
Renowned furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue from Cebu has seen that, too. In fact, he designed “Phoenix,” the world’s first and only car made from bamboo and rattan, which was showcased in a furniture fair in Milan recently.
The car, which looked like a bird about to take flight, was created in just 10 days with the use of bamboo, rattan, steel, and nylon. According to Inhabitat, an environmental web blog, “Phoenix” is designed to last the average length of time a person keeps a car – about five to 20 years.
There are so many potentials from bamboo. Furniture makers and wood craftsmen who shift from wood to bamboo are expected to share in the huge export bonanza from a growing demand for bamboo furniture and bamboo handicrafts in the global market.
“We’re not talking here of raw bamboo for export, but finished products made from bamboo. From roots to tip, you can make soap, medicines, cosmetics, furniture, bricks, clothing, paper, floor tiles, wall panels, drinks, vegetables – even surf boards from bamboo,” said an official from the Department of Trade and Industry.
There are a million uses of bamboo. According to an article which appeared in Reader’s Digest, bamboo “is delicate enough to be used in phonograph needles, yet strong enough to be used in bridge construction.” As such, bamboo can replace or indirectly decrease consumption of three critically scarce resources: wood, metal, and oil.
Already, bamboo is being used as scaffolding and concrete reinforcement in the construction of buildings. In Bangladesh, where 73 percent of the population lives in bamboo houses, bamboo provides pillars, walls, window frames, rafters, room separators, ceilings, and roofs. Throughout rural Asia it is used for building bridges, from the sophisticated technology of suspension bridges to the simpler pontoon bridges.
In the Philippines, bamboo is also indispensable in the fishing and banana industry. Fishermen use bamboo as material for making rafts, fishing rods, outriggers for bancas, and for fishpens. In salt-water areas, bamboo is used as stakes in the culture of mussels and oysters.
Bamboo is also used in the manufacture of musical instruments like horns, clarinets, saxophones, flutes, piccolos, xylophones, and drums. In Java, Indonesia, 20 different musical instruments have been fashioned of bamboo. The world-famous bamboo organ at the Roman Catholic Church of Las Piñas is a historic example of the importance of bamboo.
There are also sophisticated uses of bamboos – charcoal for electric batteries, liquid diesel fuel obtained by distillation, and enzymes and media for shoot extracts used for culturing disease-causing bacteria. The white powder produced on the outer space of young culms for the isolation of a crystalline compound its medicinally useful.
The young shoots are a good source of vitamins and minerals. Nutritionists claim that bamboo shoot is low in carbohydrates and crude fat, and it has plenty of crude fiber, making it an ideal vegetable for people who want to reduce. Eighteen amino acids are reportedly present in bamboo shoot. Just a health warning: shoots of some species contain toxins that need to be leached or boiled out before they can be eaten safely.
In terms of exports, the bamboo’s potential remains in the areas of furniture and handicrafts, whose global market grows at an annual average of US$8 billion. The exports of bamboo furniture in the Philippines rose from US$625,000 to US$1.2 million in the mid-80s until the mid-90s. Both bamboo furniture and handicrafts racked up US$438 million from 1991 to 2000. Total exports of bamboo furniture in 2000 were recorded at only US$3.2 million.
Bamboo is a superb reforestation species due to its varied utility and importance in controlling soil erosion and stabilizing riverbanks. There are three main reasons why bamboo is a superb crop for cogonal areas: both bamboo and cogon belong to the same plant family and so are compatible; bamboo grows faster and taller than cogon, and can quickly shade out the later; and bamboo is not killed when the cogonal area is burned accidentally or deliberately.
The bamboo business is labor intensive, more so during the first two years of operation. Studies have shown that labor alone eats around 90 percent of the total production cost. But the beauty of bamboo growing lies in passing the first two critical growing years.
“If the bamboos survive, you are assured of money for the next 30 to 50 years,” says a bamboo grower. Another good thing: the price of bamboo does not suffer from severe fluctuations unlike pork and chicken. In fact, they are priced depending on the diameter, volume and distance traveled.
In the Philippines, bamboo grows anywhere. Often, it will grow on marginal farm areas not much good for anything else. “It is a pity that we have neglected this important crop for so long,” Alimoane said.
All over the globe, there are 91 genera and about 1,000 species of bamboo, generally known as kawayan in the Philippines. Until now, no one knows how vast the areas planted to bamboo are. Major producing provinces are Abra in the North, Pampanga in Central Luzon, and Iloilo, Davao, and Bukidnon in the South.
Bamboo is widely distributed all over the country. The major genera are Arundinaria, Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Gigantochloa, Guadua, Schizostachyum, Thysostachys, Lalebra, Phyllostachys, Cophalostachyum, and Dinochloa.
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