Prabhu asks agri min to set up research project for bamboo sector development

Former union minister Suresh Prabhu has asked Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to set up an All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on bamboo with a view to promote growth of sector.

Prabhu launched an independent India Bamboo Forum (IBF) last month with an aim to give a boost to bamboo sector by promoting entrepreneurship, research, and tre of high quality bamboo products in a sustainable manner.

In a letter to Tomar, Prabhu said that forum is working with different stakeholders, policy makers and industry to identify specific matic areas of states and national ecosystems that require resolution.

re is a need for a comprehensive bamboo resource database for development of bamboo applications particularly for value-chain development, he said.

"In this connection, formulation of an All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on bamboo under Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), under agriculture ministry, would make production, development, movement and tracking of bamboo convenient by many fold throughout country," Prabhu has said. AICRP is alrey in existence for several crops including banana and spices.

Sanjeev Karpe, one of conveners of IBF, said, "We are requesting ICAR to study cost determining factors for sustainable market of bamboo raw material and bottlenecks between demand and supply chain and also to study sector specific primary processing and utilisation for zero wast of bamboo raw material."

About 2.5 billion people in world depend ecomically on bamboo, and international tre in bamboo is estimated at about USD 4.5 million per year.

(Photo Credit: PTI)