MPDF’s bamboo supply chain development project in Thanh Hoa Province in Vietnam is showing promising results after the 20 month pilot which ended in September 2006, and support may now be extended for a further 3 – 6 months. Over 500 farmers have benefited from increased earnings from the bamboo they sell to a factory making flooring for IKEA, and additionally the project has stimulated the development of 10 village bamboo pre-processing workshops, creating 539 new jobs, and adding significantly to local incomes.
The project, partnering with the NGO GRET, has trained more than 1,000 farmers in techniques to improve yields of the bamboo they cultivate and do this in an environmentally responsible manner. The project supported the planting of over 500 hectares of new bamboo on degraded land and experimented to identify the most suitable cultivation techniques for local conditions. This also included identifying intercrops to grow among the bamboo and provide income during the five years it takes before the bamboo is harvestable. From 2010, the newly planted areas will (at current prices) generate an estimated $150,000 per year for 20-30 years.
In conjunction with an Asian Development Bank-funded viability study undertaken by the NGO International Development Enterprises, the project supported the establishment of two village pre-processing workshops. These workshops cut the bamboo to length and split it into the strips required by the flooring factory. The factory benefits from lower transportation costs as the bamboo strips comprise only 20% of the volume of the whole bamboo culms that were previously shipped. The factory also no longer needs to pre-process the bamboo itself or to dispose of the unwanted 80% of bamboo left after pre-processing.
At village level, the benefits of the two pre-processing workshops have been magnified by the independent start up of an additional eight “copycat” workshops. In total the workshops have resulted in the creation of 539 new jobs (83% ethnic minorities and 63% female) with incomes of at least $45 a month (as compared to the local per capita income of $100 per year). In total, local incomes from salaries have thus increased by over $290,000 a year.
The 80% of the bamboo culms not sent to the flooring factory are now processed into chopsticks and toothpicks (500 tonnes of these sold by August 2006) and the remaining waste is sold to local paper mills. Total sales generated by the workshops are now $280,000 per month.
According to MPDF’s Agribusiness Program Manager, Ken Key, the project demonstrates the potential benefits of bamboo to create jobs and raise incomes in rural areas where bamboo is plentiful but income earning opportunities are few. “In China, bamboo is now a multi-billion dollar industry ($5.6b), with much of the value generated in previously impoverished rural areas. Worldwide demand for bamboo is growing rapidly not only because it’s a much a faster-growing and more eco-friendly material than traditional timber for manufacturing flooring, furniture, and paper, but the plant has multiple uses that range from edible shoots to chop sticks, construction scaffolding and it can even be processed into fabric for clothing.”
Based on the success of the Thanh Hoa project and a recently completed study undertaken jointly with Oxfam-Hong Kong on the prospects for bamboo in all three Mekong region countries covered by MPDF, the Facility and Oxfam are now working on the development of a larger scale project to develop bamboo regionally. MPDF will also explore the potential of applying the lessons learnt from bamboo to other products with potential to impact rural income.
