CABARROGUIS, Quirino (PIA)- -The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is encouraging farmers and industry players to invest more in bamboo as it sees growth in its demand in the coming years
Anna Katrina Garcia, bamboo program coordinator, said during the recently conducted seminar on business opportunities, noted that bamboo growing can give livelihood opportunities, ranging from the production of bamboo planting materials, pole production, engineered manufacturing, biomass development for energy, furniture, and handicrafts for ecotourism.
She also emphasized that the shoot segment is expected to grow with increasing demand for food.
Garcia said the worldwide bamboo market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 4.5 percent from 2022 to 2030 with industrial application and furniture segments dominating the global market.
She, however, said despite the industry’s positive global trade prospect, the bamboo industry in the Philippines faces challenges due to the limited supply of bamboo raw materials, and incomplete or sporadic bamboo data that are important drivers to sustain the growth and development of the local bamboo industry.
To address the problem, the DTI introduced the project concept of the Bamboo Resources Inventory and Technology Enabled Mapping (BRITEMAP) for a reliable bamboo database.
Mona Lisa Valle of DTI Region 2 said BRITEMAP aims to develop a centralized system platform to allow surveyors to automatically record the data through a lightweight, offline-capable application, engage communities, and ensure the sustainability and timeliness of inventory information in selected key bamboo production areas across the country.
“This project has been piloted in some provinces in the country and it can be replicated in Quirino to develop a comprehensive bamboo resource inventory database integrated into a mobile app and dashboard for sustainable data management,” Valle said.
Valle further said BRITEMAP is a collaborative project of the University of the Philippines Los Banos – College of Forestry and Natural Resources (UPLB-CFNR), Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development.
The seminar on Business Opportunities in the Bamboo Industry and Info Session on Bamboo Resources Inventory was initiated by the provincial government, through the Provincial Natural Resources and Environment Office in conjunction with the Environment Month celebration of the province focusing on bamboo for climate change mitigation, livelihood, and job creation in the countryside. (OTB/TCB/PIA Quirino)
