How India seeks to harness the ecological and economic benefits of bamboo
From preventing soil erosion to reducing nutrient loss and runoff, bamboo plays a vital role in restoring ecosystems. As the world’s second-largest bamboo producer, how is India harnessing the plant’s potential amid the growing push to protect and restore ecosystems? See infographics.
India has the world’s largest area under bamboo cultivation, covering 13.96 million hectares. (File) — Abhinav Rai
Bamboo, often referred to as “Green Gold”, plays an important role in ecosystem restoration because of its rapid growth, ability to stabilise soil – especially in sloping or flood-prone areas – and carbon sequestration. As the world’s second-largest bamboo producer, where does India stand in the growing push to protect and restore ecosystems?
India has the world’s largest area under bamboo cultivation, covering 13.96 million hectares. It is also the second richest country in terms of bamboo diversity, with 136 species – 125 indigenous and 11 exotic, according to the government data. But where does India stand in terms of per-hectare yield or productivity and effective use of this resource?
The ‘UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’ (2021-2030), declared by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), offers an opportune moment to examine why bamboo is so important – its ecological and economic significance, the global scenario, India’s recent policy push, and the challenges ahead.
Bamboo: India's Green Gold
How bamboo, technically a grass, grows
Scientifically, bamboo has been classified as a grass belonging to the Poaceae family. Bamboos’ rhizomes (underground stems) are important in understanding its growth patterns and characteristics. For instance, bamboo rhizomes are basically of three different types: sympodial, monopodial, and amphipodial.
Sympodial bamboos have short rhizomes and grow in clusters, thus forming clumps and spreading slowly. Monopodial bamboos, also known as running bamboos, have thin rhizomes that extend horizontally underground for long distances and spread rapidly over wide areas. Amphipodial bamboos have mixed qualities of running and clumping.
Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants, capable of growing by 30 to 100 cm per day in the growing season. It can reach heights of 36 meters, with a diameter of 1-30 cm. There are more than 1,600 bamboo varieties that grow in tropical and warm temperate regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas. About 2.5 billion people worldwide depend on bamboo for their livelihood, most of them are tribal or forest dwellers.
Global bamboo production and ecological functions
According to the Global Forest Resources Assessment (GFRA) 2025, the total area under bamboo resource is approximately 30.1 million hectares globally, including 8.05 million hectares of increase registered between 1990 and 2025.
Asia accounts for 70 per cent of the global bamboo area or 21.2 million hectares, with India, China, and Myanmar being among the major bamboo producing countries. While India has the largest area under bamboo cultivation, China is the largest producer and exporter of bamboo products.
Bamboo has significant ecological functions. It has the natural capacity to regenerate through rhizomes, which helps in preventing soil erosion, reducing nutrient loss and runoff, and enhancing in-situ soil moisture, water holding capacity, and nutrient cycling in degraded land ecosystems.
A bamboo-based intervention, thus, could increase soil organic carbon by 5 times on degraded lands. According to UNEP, countries like Uganda, where forest cover shrank from 24 per cent in 1990 to 12.7 per cent in 2023, are looking towards bamboo plantations to reverse some of the impacts of rapid deforestation.
Bamboo distribution across India
Bamboo grows naturally in almost all parts of India, except the Kashmir region. According to NITI Aayog, more than 50 per cent of bamboo grows in the northeastern states. India is home to 23 bamboo genera and has an estimated bamboo production potential of approximately 3.23 million tonnes/annum. Over 67 per cent of the total growing stock of Indian bamboo is clump-forming, sympodial type.
According to the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023, Madhya Pradesh has the largest bamboo-bearing area (20,421 km²), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (18,424 km²), Maharashtra (13,572 km²), and Odisha (12,328 km²).
Compared with the 2021 ISFR report, Arunachal Pradesh recorded the highest increase in bamboo-bearing area (2,685 km²), followed by Madhya Pradesh (2,027 km²). In contrast, Karnataka has shown the highest decrease in the bamboo-bearing area (1,290 km²), followed by Manipur (860 km²).
Economic significance
Bamboo and its associated industries in India are estimated to be worth around Rs. 28,005 crore, and still have vast untapped potential. The sector provides employment to nearly 2 million artisans. Its very short growth cycle, optimum strength-to-weight ratio with a hardy, light and flexible nature makes it a good substitute for wood wherever required.
Bamboo has so many uses, including paper, handicrafts, building and construction materials, furniture, boats, textiles, musical instruments, food, energy, and herbal medicine. Bamboo is increasingly becoming popular for producing soft, breathable, and biodegradable fabrics.
It is also considered an eco-friendly replacement for plastic by manufacturing biodegradable toothbrushes, reusable cutlery, and kitchenware. In many states, bamboo is a significant part of the traditional practices, festivals and rituals of the local tribe.
The National Bamboo Mission
The National Bamboo Mission (NBM) was launched in 2006 by the central government. The NBM contributed significantly to expanding bamboo cultivation both in forest and non-forest areas. The next challenge was to make the bamboo production commercially lucrative by establishing linkages between farmers and industry.
During 2014-15, the NBM was brought under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), which continued till 2015-16. In 2017, the government amended the provisions of the Indian Forest Act (1927) to exclude bamboo located outside forest areas from the definition of tree.
It allowed the felling and transit of bamboo in non-forest areas without any permits. But restrictions on bamboo located within forest areas continue. The move was aimed at improving the income and livelihoods of forest dwellers, tribals, and farmers depending on it.
In 2018, a restructured NBM was approved by the government with the aim of holistic development of the bamboo sector by adopting an area-based and regionally differentiated strategy.
The mission focuses on strengthening the entire value chain, starting from setting up new nurseries, improving the quantity and quality of planting material, increasing the area under bamboo cultivation and expanding the marketing of bamboo products. At present, the scheme is being implemented in 24 States/UTs.
Policy and investment push
The NBM mission gets funding with a 60:40 ratio between the Centre and State governments (except North East and Hilly states, where it is 90:10) and 100 per cent in the case of Union Territories. The Mission envisages establishing a resilient forward and backward link in the bamboo economy, which will be competitive both in the domestic and global markets.
Several states, including Assam, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Tripura, and Manipur, have formulated dedicated state policies in line with the objectives of the NBM to boost bamboo cultivation, processing, and commercial use.
The Maharashtra Government, for instance, approved the Bamboo Industry Policy 2025, which seeks to increase the overall bamboo production and provide a climate-friendly income source to the farmers. The state aims to attract an investment of Rs 50,000 crore in the next 10 years and expects to generate employment opportunities for over 5 lakh people.
Last year, in Assam’s Golaghat, India inaugurated the world’s first commercial second-generation Bamboo-Based Bio-Ethanol Plant. The first-generation ethanol plants use edible food crops like sugarcane or corn as raw materials. Apart from energy security, this will also provide additional income opportunities for bamboo-producing farmers in the region.
Challenges and way forward
Despite the recent policy impetus, India’s bamboo productivity is relatively low, with a maximum yield of 10–15 MT/hectares compared with China’s 50 MT/hectares. As a result, India remains a net importer of raw materials for its bamboo-based industries.
In addition, there are other various challenges, including structural, institutional and those related to infrastructure. For example, large bamboo resources are located in poorly connected regions of north-eastern states, which are often protected areas with steep slopes. This makes the harvesting, extraction and transportation difficult and economically unfavourable.
The sector has the potential to prevent soil degradation, recover degraded ecosystems, stimulate the local rural economy and increase farmers’ incomes. Therefore, some of the steps towards further strengthening the sector may include: treating bamboo as a commercial crop, making farmers aware of its economic potential, focusing on suitable species selection, increasing yield, and large-scale investment in processing infrastructure.
Post read questions
1. Discuss the ecological significance of bamboo in soil conservation, restoration of degraded land and carbon sequestration. What limitations should be kept in mind while promoting bamboo-based restoration?
2. Bamboo has the potential to simultaneously address ecological restoration, rural livelihoods and industrial development in India. Examine.
3. Examine the role of the National Bamboo Mission in transforming bamboo from a largely traditional resource into a commercially viable value chain.
4. Bamboo is increasingly being promoted as a substitute for wood and certain plastic products. Examine its economic and environmental potential.
5. Bamboo offers a rare convergence of agriculture, forestry, handicrafts, manufacturing, bioenergy and climate policy. Examine the institutional challenges of developing such a cross-sectoral value chain.
(Abhinav Rai is a Doctoral candidate at the Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.)
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