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Design Strategy for Rural Development
Once the local bamboo farms are stabilised and more farms are put in place we will need to develop both local and external markets for the materials that are produced by the farmers. It is here that we have a real opportunity to develop value added strategies for both local use products as well as products for up market customers in the vast India urban marketplace that can give large employment to local producer groups.
We envisage a whole host of applications that are innovative and in consonance with the properties of the particular species of bamboo that is cultivated locally. Each region of the country can choose a few locally appropriate bamboo species based on the nature of soil, climate and intended end uses and then invest in developing good practices for the systematic cultivation of these species in well managed farms by using processes that comply with eco-friendly norms that would also need to be developed for each species. The post-harvest practices too will add value to the bamboo raw material and in some cases primary local conversion of the bamboo stock and by-products of farming would create local employment for a large number of people.
All parts of the bamboo are useful and the product design strategy should take this factor into account as well. The rural people in many remote regions of India do not as yet have sophisticated marketing and business skills nor are they educated to manage the complex communication needs of an international and globalised business. We therefore advocate that start up enterprises look at local market opportunities and here trained designers and innovators have a role to play in the imaginative creation of contemporary products that have such characteristics that are suitable for local entrepreneurship and start-up businesses with very little capital and investment in tools and infrastructure. Once the local businesses get going the local craftsmen are quick learners on the job so to speak and they will be able to meet increasingly sophisticated market demands fro up-country markets and from the export trade as well.
The new products and utilisation could include the production of bamboo shoots as food, bamboo chips and cuttings as fuel as well as conversion of splits and culms into products for local agricultural and domestic use. We have developed stackable school furniture using the Bambusa affinis poles and our DDP joint strategy (Drill, Dowel & Pin) to make all the furniture that may be needed in a village school. Since the designs are now available local craftsmen can make these at very low costs on a non-cash economy basis using local materials and local skills as a cooperative enterprise for village development. Design for other markets needs professional designers with experience from other markets top help fashion products suitable for the up-market clients and supply chains. Here there is a large opportunity to be filled by design students and engineering students to create both products and tools that can improve productivity and quality of the offerings from the village. Click on the image to enlarge or download.
Prof M P Ranjan
Head, NID-CBI
16 July 2005 at 9.10 pm IST
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