Economics of Bamboo

[Mark Meckes]

Bamboo can enhance the quality of our lives, as we learn from and give respect to it's wonders and beauty.
Bamboo can offers us many benefits in our daily lives, by what it can provide us, through it's diversity and versatility of uses.
In addition, bamboo has the potential for being used for economic reasons.
In this age, in every part of the world, economics plays a vital role in our lives. We need money, or some means of barter. It isn't possible to live completly self-sufficiently anymore.
There are many ways that bamboo has played an economic role in peoples lives and the methods and means of doing so are extremely varied.
There are individuals working alone, couples, groups communitys and co-operatives working together.
There are micro enterprises, small businesses, and large corporations.
Products are made individually,one of a kind, small scale productions, and bamboo products are mass produced.
Artists and craftpeople may be self-employed, sell wholesale or retail, or work by piece rate.
Or we might be employed by a `socially responsible' employer for a reasonable salary and good conditions, or we might be working in a `sweat-shop' under life threatening conditions with for very low pay.

Income from bamoo may be the sole means of survival, or it may only serve to provide a supplemental income, provide a seasonal cash flow, or be an addition to other `non bamboo' related income.
Or an income may derived from a combination of different components of bamboo. For example through the sale of plants, landscape installations, shoots, poles, arts and crafts, and musical performances from bamboo musical instruments etc etc etc etc.
Or perhaps only one type of product is made, or category of products.
Or perhaps just one specific part of the bamboo is all that is used to make the products
The labor involved and time it takes to secure and prepare raw materials, or the costs of acquiring the materials can also have a great economic signifance to the `bottom line'.
If the bamboo raw materials to make the products are purchased from a supplier for a set price, with no contact made with a live bamboo plant...or if the raw materials are harvested from a grove, taking only the parts needed, and no grove maintenance is done, or if the bamboo is planted, carefully tended, harvested, graded, dried, cured etc etc
etc....each of these ways affect the economic outcome, as well as lifestyle benefits.

Also great signifance has to do with which part of the world we live in. The economys of the world are not equal.
There are many types of markets, niches and methods of generating sales. These affect the price and financial returns gained from the product.
There are issues related to the quality of workmanship.

These are just a few random thoughts about some issues that affect anyone who is making or would like to make any kind of living from bamboo.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences...

Mark

[Guest]

Mark:
Economics isn't just money. It can be avoiding the need for money, for example. If I can build a woven bamboo fence for my chickens instead of buying poultry netting every three years (which is how long the crap they make nowadays lasts in my climate), I don't have to earn that money. If I don't have to earn it, I don't have to pay taxes on it.
While as a family we will need some money, we need less each time we use bamboo to meet our needs, grow our own food, heat with fuel from our woodlot, etc., etc.
Not only do we not pay taxes on the value we create for ourselves, we can then earn less money that we do pay taxes on, so that reduces the rate of taxation.
Thats a triple benefit, just in terms of money.
Moreover, more of the work we do is when we want, done the way we want, and to our own standards.
When I see what other people pay for "vacations" to be able to do that, I think that freedom has an economic benefit too. The cost of freedom substituted, in dollars, is high.
Now I'm thinking of the traditional Malaysian rice farmer. S/he had bamboo for construction of home, implements, ammenities, utensils, etc., and for food, palm trees for logs, food, and thatch, chickens, waterfowl, etc, much managed on the bund of the rice paddy. Now the bund has been cleared,
high yield rice varieties are planted, and bamboo is grown in plantation areas, not as a crop fit into the margins of the farm (no more shelterbelts, for example.)
The farmer produces very few of his/her own needs, but sells
much of what is produced, be it bamboo or rice, to by the rest. That farmer makes far more money than s/he ever could in the traditional system.
Is the farmer richer? I think we all know the answer.
Yes, living in an industrialized country where one has to pay taxes just to claim a bit of Mother Earth as living space, we "need" money. At least we do if we want to live a settled life. (I met a Cherokee man in New York City many years ago who was "homeless." He said, My people have always lived with
no specific place as home. It is no big deal. Sometimes what we think we "need" maks us poorer, just for thinking it.)
Growing bamboo and crafting the cane into objects for sale is a great intermediate positon, between my Cherokee acquaintance and a 9-5 job. One has a much larger measure of independence than the 9-5er and every reason to have a life that is fulfilling, as we can do our best without any (except maybe ourselves) nagging about production levels. We can also get more into a bioregional frame of living, using raw materials grown by ourselves and our neighbors and selling or exchanging our products with them for what we need that they have.

Now there is a great arrangement becoming popular in many parts of the world known as the CSA--Community Supported Agriculture.
Typically, with many variations on this theme, one joins a group that has entered into contract with a farmer. The farmer says, I can grow these crops and the group votes on what it wants to eat. Then throughout the growing season, each member recieves a grocery bag with what is in season. The food is fresh, harvested that day usually, of high quality (often "organic"), and sometimes cheaper than grocery store prices. There is a minimum of energy expended in transport.

Why can't we have CSA's for bamboo?
For example, personally, I make things from bamboo as a matter of convenience and necessity, and not very often. But I am growing bamboo for shoots (just getting started) and will obviously have a cane production too. Moreover, I'd be happy to plant adapted species that meet a specific need.
So if a craftsperson specifically wanted Bambusa textilis gracilis, perhaps for some sort of woven product, I'd be happy to put in some of that, especially if I had a little help from the craftsperson. (Who will not be actually buying any bamboo from me for at least 7 years, and then not much until the clumps expand.)

Beyond the CSA model, there is commonworks, an arrangement widely promoted in permaculture. In commonworks, different people make different use of the same land in ways that complement and support one another. For example, a craftsperson could help manage a stand for poles while I harvest shoots. So s/he would probably mark each new culm for age, thin when the culm was ready, etc., coming by seasonally. I would cut shoots for eating, leaving those that would be later harvested to keep feeding the grove, probably manage my chickens to help the bamboo grow better, etc.
We would share the work and harvest different products. I might get other benefits, such as shelterbelt, edible mycorrhizal fungi, etc. A bee keeper may use our land and the bamboo could provide transit hedges for the bees. (They like to follow hedges to stay out of the wind.) Etc.
Not only do we get more than one livlihood (or portion of a livlihood) from the same land, but we are in a positon to back each other up. If the craftsperson gets a bad case of flue
when it is time to harvest canes, I will know his/her system for marking them and be able to help out there. Etc. Etc.
These are potential economic benefits. I know of no situation where a bamboo CSA, let alone a bamboo commonworks arrangement, has been set up. But obviously there is opportunity to become less dependent on remote suppliers
and more supportive of the economics of our home communities in such arrangements.

I guess I should have mentioned marketing contracts, too. In this situation, less trust and interdependence is required. You say you want so many canes of my P aurea (whatever) and we agree on a price. In season they are cut. You may be allowed to cut them yourself, to get what you want (equivalent to pick your own operations.) This is done that way in the Philippines, for example. Bamboo craftspeople harvest canes themselves to get the quality they want. Where they have a regular arrangement with the grower, they mark the culms for age and it becomes more of a CSA or
commonworks arrangement, though it is not called that. Very informal.
There's the global economy, and there is the human economy of our home bioregions. I think the way to vote is for the bioregions. That does not mean that people may not need a transition, importing from remote areas raw materials until they can get all they need an reasonable prices close to
home. But that is the direction in which to go, in my personal opinion.

Dan Hemenway
Barking Frogs Permaculture Center

[Mark Meckes]

Thanks Dan, for sharing these perspectives with us!
Bamboo can be made into products that can be exchanged into money, goods and services.
And if we use bamboo that we grow and harvest, for something that we need, instead having to spend money to buy these the goods, this can reduce the amount of money we need, (unless we gain new needs requiring moore money!).
Much of how we consider about the economics of bamboo depends on each of our individual circumstances, what our needs and desires are, the things we would like to do in our lives, and whether we have the opportunities and where-with-all to be able to fulfill our dreams.

Our group is world-wide, so it's not difficult to imagine how different it would be to live on the `other side' of the world from where we live. So much would depend on actual circumstances, how we think about things, what we know, how we do things, how we cope, who we know...what defines our community, our family, friends, associates, contacts etc...
To top it off, we are living in such a changing world, like it has never been before....why, look at our group...never before have we been able to come together like this, to share in an instant, our bamboo views!

Mark