Bamboo Resource And Rural Livelihood

The study was carried out to assess the dependency of farmers on bamboo resource for rural livelihood in Lalitpur district of Nepal. It revealed that bamboo craftmaking is only the alternative income source to cope with this food insecurity situation as it is the traditional occupation of Paharis, indigenous caste for hundreds of years. The study also found that the lack of market, bamboo raw material, technical knowledge about bamboo plantation and management, small landholding, subsidies and micro-finance from the government are the major challenges of bamboo craftmaking. The rural farmers have opportunity to large-scale bamboo plantation in Community forest by CFUGs themselves and with the initiation of forest department for technical as well as financial support to run their enterprise in a sustainable way. They have also the opportunity to shift from traditional craftmaking to modern crafts, develop market network through farmers' co-operatives, multiple uses of bamboo resource to improve the livelihood status. As the timber price has increased day by day, bamboo has taken the place of timber in many household uses such as house construction, fuel, fodder and furniture.