Scale up effort to promote bamboo and rattan production

Ghana has been asked to scale up the effort to increase bamboo and rattan production in the country to serve as alternative raw material to timber and help save the forest.

Mr. Michael Kwaku, Director of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), said the Steering Committee of the Bamboo and Rattan Development Programme (BARADEP) needed to get its acts together.

He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi that the Committee needed to work hard to aggressively encourage the setting up of more bamboo plantations across the various communities.

There could not be any doubt that, the nation has good policies and programmes to boost bamboo and rattan production.

He indicated that what was left was how to effectively implement these to achieve the intended outcomes.

He reminded the government of its promise to establish 1,000 hectares of bamboo and rattan plantation every year and asked that it did everything “to make this happen”.

Mr. Kwaku said the pledge to foster a strong partnership with the Chinese government to train Ghanaians to fully exploit the potential of the bamboo business must also be carried through.

This would require putting in place the appropriate structures and resources, he added.

He pointed out that if things were done properly, the sector could create thousands of jobs for the people.

Currently, the bamboo and rattan business is employing about 1,500 people.