If we talk about the Environment, Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world, provides 35% more oxygen, absorbs the highest carbon than any other plant in the world.
This lack of awareness has a direct relation with The Indian Forest Act, 1927 under whose section 2(7), Bamboo was wrongly placed in the category of tree and its farming without governmental approval was banned for 90 years. Bamboo, which can be harvested every year for many a decades after getting matured and to whom the whole world considered a vital member of the grass family, the same Bamboo was handicapped by a mistake in forest laws, and slowly it disappeared from a core farmer’s field.
In these 90 years, riding high on scientific innovations, countries like China and Vietnam strengthened their economy by building an empire of Bamboo industries. Meanwhile India, who was the biggest exporter of Incense sticks till the 80’s, started importing the same worth Rs 8000 crores every year for its own religious places, houses and offices. Today, the annual Bamboo import of various Bamboo industries including paper pulp, kite, toothpick, matchbox, fiber, furniture, handicraft etc. has reached lakhs of crores, 65% of which is paid to China and Vietnam.
If we talk about the Environment, Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world, provides 35% more oxygen, absorbs the highest carbon than any other plant in the world and absorbs deadly metro pollutants like PM 2.5 and PM 10. It recharges the ground water-table, prevents soil erosion, clears the sewage water and has miraculous environmental benefits. There’s no count of what our environment lost in these 90 years.
On 23rd November 2017, the Central Government of India made the historical amendment of ‘placing Bamboo again in the category of Grass’, thereby freed it from undue suffering and permitting its commercial farming without any governmental approval.
Now the farmers can plant Bamboo on the boundary of their field or under various density methods as per industrial applications, plant it in the whole farm and make lakhs of money every year for generations to come. Bamboo farming will provide raw material to more than 1500 industries, and it is the biggest medium to drive our country on the path of being ‘a carbon neutral country’ by 2070.
Today the Petrol-Diesel prices are sky high in India and lakhs crore of crude oil is being imported every year. ‘Scarcity of coal’ is becoming every day’s issue and to ‘tighten the lid’ over carbon emission is utmost necessary. Renewable energy is the need of the hour, and the future of the entire world depends upon it. In such time, farming of Beema bamboo, which is the best renewable energy crop can resurge India into ‘The Green Golden Bird’.
If anything is needed, it is changing our thoughts and mindset. Because ‘progress is impossible without change’!