The Bamboo and Rattan Sectors in Asia: an Analysis of ... - INBAR

The PCS
The key market participants are:
● Bamboo farmers
● Bamboo traders
● Bamboo products manufacturers (several organizational and ownership
structures co-exist)
● Sub-contractors
● Domestic wholesalers
● Foreign trade companies
The Anji case is the most intensive of all of the studies in this series. Bamboo has
been managed in plantations in the area for hundreds of years. The bamboo plantations
are predominantly of Phyllostachys pubescens, known locally as moso. Traditional
management has succeeded in controlling some of the problems often associated
with bamboo cultivation. For example, the last record or gregarious flowering dates
back to 1601 AD. Also, the typical biennial shooting cycle of moso has been adapted
so that when most of the bamboo in the eastern part of the county is shooting in a
year, the bamboo in the western part is not. In the southern part of the county there
is a mixture. The on-year/off-year shooting characteristic gives rise to the use of the
'du' (two years) as the basic time unit. The long practical experience has been
augmented by years of scientific research as well. A range of improved technologies
has been developed to accelerate regeneration, improve productivity and manage
harvesting. These improved technologies have been effectively extended to farmers,
and many have been formulated as rules and regulations administered by the county
and provincial forestry departments.
The system is very dynamic. Levels of production and productivity of culms,
shoots and by-products have increased rapidly over the past 15 years, and the
processing industries have expanded at a very fast rate. The main lessons from this
study concern the policy changes that enabled this rapid development.
The bamboo plantations, along with all agricultural and forestry land in the
country, belong to the state. They were collectively managed for approximately 25
years, beginning in the mid-1950s. The "Regulation of Advanced Agricultural
Production Cooperation" law, passed in 1956, specified that all forestry activities
were to be organized and managed as part of township and village farms.
Rural reforms launched in the early 1980s have shifted management responsibility
to households, with dramatic effects on the rural economy. In 1981, "The Decision on
Some Problems of Protection Forest and Development Forestry" was promulgated by
the State Council. This was followed by reforms of forest and forest land property
rights. As a beginning, 6% of the total bamboo land in Anji County was allocated to
35