Over the last some decades, a species of grass, bamboo has emerged as a sought after material for clothing, interior designers, luxury hotel chains, furniture makers, and for many other applications. This shift of the marketplace are indications of environmentally responsible product development through innovations directed at finding a more sustainable resource for human daily needs. However, the real potential of bamboo’s use is far from realized due to gap in knowledge and innovation to make optimum use of this resource.

There are enough examples how bamboo can make a contribution to economic growth like as a replacement material for papers and single-use plastics, and  in interior design, and manufacturing. China produces around 40 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks annually made from bamboo for use at dining table. Even while constructing high rise buildings, bamboo scaffolding are used in place of Steel.

Traditional knowledge and skills available in rural areas will have a key role in product innovation and the production of value-added products. Institutional players including government will continue to play a facilitating role in promoting bamboo sector innovation through training and policy interventions. A holistic effort is needed to upgrade the capacity of farmers, artisans, and enterprises and the focus should be on creating and nurturing a bamboo sector innovation system.

First of all an urgent need to expand the research on bamboo cultivation to increase the productivity using high-yielding genotypes. During growth of the bamboo plant, it’s shaping for beams and columns for rural houses, etc. also needs effort in labs since housing and construction sector is among the big end-users.

Some of the areas thus requires attention of research and innovation are:

1. Application of  high value uses  like production of immune-boosting and  other    medicines, food and nutrition substances.

2. The use of bamboo composites, fibers, and other derivative products in the industry.

3. Traditional knowledge of Bamboo has to be systematically mapped to the modern systems of classification and utilization.

4. All the design and technology institutions like NID may have a specific design and innovation lab to develop innovative products, tools and processing machinery.

5. Regular Innovation Challenge  for bamboo products may be conducted for developing practical solution for solving challenges.

6. Incubators for bamboo-based enterprises should be set up in regions having bamboo cultivation for promoting innovation-based enterprises.