The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Rajshahi

Special measures should be taken to flourish the bamboo handicraft industry for protecting the people who are dependent on this sector in the northern region.

According to the sources concerned, the traditional bamboo handicrafts has recently been in the doldrums because of a dwindling demand for the environment-friendly products.

Talking to BSS, experts, manufacturers and traders said effective steps are essential to create demand for bamboo products in local and regional markets, removing obstacles to its production.

They said around two lakh people are involved in bamboo growing and production of bamboo crafts in northern Bangladesh. Most of the producers are women and aborigines and bamboo products are their main income source. Besides, another 50,000 people are completely dependent on bamboo crafts trading for their livelihoods.

The manufacturers collect bamboo from local markets and sell the processed items locally while the small traders purchase the items from different villages and sell those to various regional markets.

However, manufacturers frequently are deprived of minimum profits due to various reasons, particularly the high price of bamboo, irregular supply of raw materials and lack of communication between different markets. On the other hand, the bamboo products are gradually losing demand due to rapid expansion of the plastic industry, they added.

They said diversified, need-based and effective steps should be taken to boost production and trading of the crafts in the greater interest of promoting the sector.

They said the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute and the Forest Department could be utilised to impart training to nursery owners in bamboo sapling production in branch cutting method to enhance bamboo and cane production.

The bamboo product manufacturers could also be brought under the training programme for sustainable development of the sector through expansion of business at private level besides arranging motivational workshops for the target group people.

In addition to make the local bamboo products familiar with the exporters, survey in different high price markets including Dhaka and linkage between the wholesalers and the producers along with their produced items should be brought under consideration to enhance communication in this field.

Both short and long term measures, experts said, would benefit the bamboo growers, traders, manufacturers and businessmen, and help cut poverty.