Bamboo forestry (also known as bamboo farming, cultivation, agriculture or agroforestry) is a cultivation and raw material industry that provides the raw materials for the broader

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

industry, worth over 72 billion dollars globally in 2019. Historically, a dominant raw material in South and South East Asia, the global bamboo industry has significantly grown in recent decades in part because of the high sustainability of bamboo as compared to other biomass cultivation strategies, such as traditional timber

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...

. For example, as of 2016, the U.S. Fiber corporation

Resource Fiber Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their a ...

is contracting farmers in the United States for bamboo cultivation. Or in 2009,

United Nations Industrial Development Organization The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (French: Organisation des Nations unies pour le développement industriel; French/Spanish acronym: ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in e ...

published guidelines for cultivation of bamboo in semi-arid climates in Ethiopia and Kenya. Because bamboo can grow on otherwise

marginal land Marginal land is land that is of little agricultural or developmental value because crops produced from the area would be worth less than any rent paid for access to the area. Although the term ''marginal'' is often used in a subjective sense for l ...

, bamboo can be profitably cultivated in many degraded lands. Moreover, because of the rapid growth, bamboo is an effective

climate change mitigation Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases or Carbon sink, removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caus ...

and

carbon sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. Carbon dioxide () is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes. These changes can be accelerated through changes in land ...

crop, absorbing between 100 and 400 tonnes of carbon per hectare. In 1997, an international intergovernmental organization was established to promote the development of bamboo cultivation, the

International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation The International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR) is an independent intergovernmental organization established in 1997 to develop and promote innovative solutions to poverty and environmental sustainability using bamboo and rattan. Histor ...

. Bamboo is harvested from both cultivated and wild stands, and some of the larger bamboos, particularly species in the genus ''

Phyllostachys ''Phyllostachys'' () is a genus of Asian bamboo in the grass family. Many of the species are found in central and southern China, with a few species in northern Indochina and in the Himalayas. Some of the species have become naturalized in parts ...

'', are known as "timber bamboos". Bamboo is typically harvested as a source material for construction, food, crafts and other manufactured goods. Bamboo cultivation in South, South East Asia and East Asia stretches back thousands of years. One practice, in South Korea, has been designated as a

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads the programme Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), which helps identify ways to mitigate threats faced by these systems and their people and enhance the ...

References

Bamboo Forestry articles needing expert attention {{Bamboo-stub