Making Income From Bamboo Furniture

Bamboo furniture are furniture made from bamboo trees which are used in homes, traditional restaurants, and in some offices and large commercial centres.

The furniture include tables, chairs, shelves and other household items, baskets, while doors and windows can also be made from bamboo.

Wood and metal-based household furniture are increasingly becoming very expensive from year to year and even a locally-made full set of sofa in modern wood working enterprises is pretty expensive in most urban areas in Nigeria.

Bamboo is a tropical and temperate plant and also grows in cold areas, it belongs to grass family and is one of the fastest growing plants in the world.

There are over 1, 400 species globally; this makes it possible to determine what species to be planted in any place. Those grown in wet land are usually thicker while those cultivated in dried land are longer and slimmer. some species are capable of growing up to 90 centimeter in a day. Bamboo can be harvested between 3 – 5 years; thereafter it continued to regenerate for about 70 years. This implies one would continue to harvest for a long period, what an attractive investment.

The major processes for producing bamboo chairs and tables are cooking of the raw bamboo, slitting, forming (setting the frame work, body preparation) and finishing. Different designs can be incorporated into the product.

The raw bamboo is cooked and dried and it is split and cut into required thickness and size by tools. The framework is then prepared and bamboo splits are then inter-woven according to the design and required strength. Varnishes can be applied on the product to produce fine and attractive finish.

It benefits to the country is its utilsation as natural resources and foreign exchange generation from export to other parts of the world.

On a commercial basis, bamboo reapers of different thickness made from bamboo culm is used for various purposes like furniture making, craft products, among others.

The thickness of the bamboo culm decreases from bottom to top. To ensure reapers are obtained at various required thickness without wastage of bamboo poles, the whole bamboo pole is cut into different sections of different thickness prudently.

Bamboo Giganteus is the most commonly used bamboo species for craft products. A bamboo giganteus pole is cut into four different parts after it is sourced. A Bamboo giganteus pole which is normally 40-45 . long.

Partner, Ballsbridge & Co, Abdulkadir Hassan, told LEADERSHIP that currently, bamboo business is not yet thriving enough in Nigeria due inadequate awareness and capacity.

Hassan, also, Co-chairman, Bamboo Technology Promotion Committee, said many players across sectors are aware of the numerous innovative uses of bamboo but the most common use is in scaffolding and other rudimentary applications. However, the business is expected to thrive as more Nigerians get to know economic power and earning potentials bamboo.

To make it thrive further, he said, there is need for integration of bamboo technology into entrepreneurial development programmes of higher institutions, professional bodies, industrial associations and other players in the economy.

As the bamboo technology has potential impacts on almost every sectors of the economy. Of course it can save nation’s foreign exchange from the import other products and inputs that bamboo can serve as raw materials.

Housing sector could also make bamboo value chain to thrive further.

The reason being that bamboo can significantly bring down the cost of housing. It can be used with materials to produce concretes, provide wood requirements and generate a wide range of housing inputs. Bamboo housing is very durable and less vulnerable to environmental shocks once the right process and technologies are used.

He listed challenges of bamboo development in Nigeria to include; access to bamboo technology, lack of capacity and power supply issues amongst others.

“For example there were examples of some parties mostly MSME that either attempted or started bamboo processing but they could not sustain it, due to mainly power and other challenges that makes the tough.” he said.