Bamboo + collaboration = profits
Every year, millions of householders flick through a new IKEA catalogue when it arrives through their letter box. In the ‘flooring’ section, they might just notice a product called Kvist. This solid wood floor is available in three colours: light brown, dark brown and bamboo.
Bamboo? That one word is the clue to a story of hope involving a DFID-backed programme, many rural Vietnamese and a sustainable, environmentally friendly way of doing business.
Global demand
Ha Xuan De lives in the hills of Vietnam’s north-central region, 150 kilometres south of Hanoi. He also has a bamboo floor, but his didn’t come from IKEA – it came from his own land.
Smoking his bamboo pipe in the twilight while his wife Ha Thi Quyen makes the tea, Ha Xuan De is a contented man. From the door of his bamboo stilt house perched 30 metres or so up the side of a gorge, he looks down on a breathtaking scene of natural beauty as the broad river meanders through the wooded mountain slopes.
Chair of the local farmers’ committee, he did not always grow bamboo as a business. "We used to plant bamboo as a sideline, mostly for construction," he says. "Now I don’t even plant rice or corn - I plant bamboo instead because it’s worth a lot more. There’s a global demand."
Sustainable good looks
Not only is bamboo as durable as some oaks and maples, it is cheaper than both. And most important of all, it is sustainable. Chop down a bamboo tree and there will be another one in its place in three to four years.
This explains why the world’s eyes are turning towards this wonder plant. China, unsurprisingly, is ahead of the game and responsible for around $6 billion of the $7 billion worldwide bamboo trade.
Potential on the hillside
With the support of retailers such as IKEA, Vietnam is opening its eyes to the potential on its hillsides. In Thanh Hoa province grows a particular variety of bamboo called luong. Thicker and stronger than most other kinds, luong is ideal for laminate flooring.
IKEA saw Vietnam as a sustainable source of the wood. Working alongside French-invested bamboo products manufacturer TBF, it began production in Thanh Hoa.
Bamboo goes global
After being cut and sawed in a TBF workshop, the bamboo was planed, finished and glued in a factory near Hanoi. It was then sent in containers to IKEA stores around the world.
But while farmers’ incomes were rising, the process was not making the best use of the wood or netting the most value to the growers. All the farmers did was cut the bamboo and tow it to the road or float it downstream on the river. They were paid – but not a lot relative to the value of the end product.
Opportunities and collaboration
In 2005, an opportunity to improve revenues for the farmers and make better use of the bamboo plant was identified. The DFID-financed programme, Making Markets Work Better for the Poor (M4P), became involved in a consortium that aimed to develop new business models with poor farmers in Thanh Hoa.
This led to the establishment of specialist workshops, often run by local co-operative groups, close to the growing areas. Bamboo trunks delivered by local farmers are now piled high on the roadside at the Binh Dinh co-operative in the Quan Hoa district. Machines have been leased to process the trunks, and local people are employed to cut them into strips.
The strips are now trucked to TBF, taking up far less space and cutting transport costs by a third. The local workshop then turns the top ends of the strips into chopsticks, which are sold to a trader. Any remaining bamboo is sold for pulp.
Tangible benefits
The benefits to the people working at Binh Dinh are tangible. "I’m only 22 but I'm already earning more than my parents do," says Dao Van Khang.
"There are not many jobs for women round here," adds Ha Thi Kieu, 19. "Life is very hard - that’s why I’m glad I got this job. I want to work here and save money so I can go on to study...but at the moment I have to support my family."
Luong Thi Que, 43, has children at college, "So I need money to support them - this is better than going to the rice field...We work there all year round and still can’t get enough to eat."
Reflecting on change
The workshop has been a boon, adds Ha Xuan De, smoking his pipe and reflecting on the change his community has seen. "I chop the bamboo and take it to the workshop and get the money very quickly. Before, we had to drag it down to the river and raft it, and it took a long time before we got paid."
He had the advantage of a fertile block of land, but like other farmers, he has benefited from training to get the most out of it. "I learned new techniques, so I grow more bamboo and I earn more money."
"We have three motorcycles and a TV powered by a generator run from the mountain stream. But the money isn’t just for me - the whole community benefits."
He is not surprised to hear that people in the UK are buying his bamboo flooring: "Soon everyone everywhere will want to be like us!"