Tanzania targets pie of $7 billion global bamboo market

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is turning to bamboo as a key strategy to decrease carbon emissions while simultaneously boosting the production of high-quality furniture for export, as it aims to claim a share of the lucrative $7 billion global market.

Apart from its unmatched emission reduction capability, bamboo is also in high demand in China and other countries where it is massively used for furniture.

At the launch of the National Bamboo Development Strategy and Action Plan for 2023-2031 on February 19, the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ms Angellah Kairuki, said bamboo can reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent.

“As you have heard from stakeholders, bamboo has greater ability to absorb carbon emissions by 40 percent. No other plant in the world can do that,” Ms Kairuki noted.

She added that the implementation of the bamboo strategy will help reduce the effects of climate change and soil erosion.

About 2.5 billion people in Asia, Africa, and South America use bamboo materials to manufacture products valued at $7 billion annually.

Ms Kairuki said that through more production of bamboo, the country will be able to earn taxes and increase foreign currency.

Bamboo production could also create a new value chain and generate employment and incomes for farmers and all those involved in the value chain.

“We are losing approximately 469,000 hectares of forest area every year. This situation is not good because if joint efforts are not taken, then the speed of the spread of the desert will affect our country and ultimately contribute to affecting the world shortly,” she said.

The Tanzania Forest Services Agency (TFS) commissioner for conservation, Prof Dos Santos Silayo, said planting bamboo will help increase the level of production.

He said bamboo’s fast growth and short annual harvest cycle can speed up carbon sequestration at a rate of 4.5 and 6 times more than other plant species.

“The strategy we are launching today makes Tanzania among the 50 countries in the world that use bamboo as a profitable plant, so we will increase production; there are already seven farms growing bamboo,” he said.

The target set in the strategy is to plant a total of 10,000 hectares of bamboo plantations and woodlots by June 2031, as well as establish two bamboo seed orchards.

On the other hand, a biodiversity conservationist and lecturer at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (Sua), Dr Paulo Lyimo, said bamboo is useful for making furniture, so this strategy, together with other things, will help teach citizens how they can benefit from this product.

“Countries like China are currently selling carbon through the bamboo crop; Tanzania can also enter the market because it does not take long to grow, and it takes five years, unlike the others, which take up to 100 years,” he said.