Abstract

Bamboo is an important component of the rural landscapes in Kerala. In order to understand the reasons for negative attitude towards bamboo by farmers, and also assess the possibilities of promotion of bamboo cultivation, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques were employed. PRA provided an opportunity for some of the farmers to involve in small-scale bamboo cultivation in their homesteads which in turn helped scientists to understand socio-economic and ecological factors influencing in bamboo cultivation and management. On-farm experiments indicated that growing some rhizomatous crops as undercrop of bamboo is an acceptable one. Number of farmers who realised that something can be grown under bamboo is increased from 8 to 100. Farmers prefer short duration plants as undercrops. Selection of crops is determined by the socio-economic status of the farmers. Participant farmers also realised that more than the influence of bamboos, factors such as the level of management, quality of soil and planting material used and shade of other trees determine the crop yields. A study on the thickness of fibre wall of bamboo branches, an indicator of branch maturity, revealed that the fibre wall thickness increased with age till branches are of 8-9 (February-March) months old and no change was observed later. The study also disapprove the notion that farmers of the Humid and Dry zone are free only during December-January and those of the Kole zone during May-June. Majority of the farmers have free timein the month of March-April. Therefore, ideal time for fencing acitivity here is February-April. Bamboo branches, though widely used for fencing homegardens and other lands, are increasingly expensive due to the high labour costs involved in cutting bamboo branches. Therefore, a need for increasing the life of fence was felt by the farmers. An experiment was designed to study the effectiveness of chemical preservation technique using boric acid and copper sulphate solution. The activity did not provide conclusive results. An attempt has been made to promote bamboo cultivation in a village in the low rainfall Dry agroclimatic zone of Kerala. The case studies demonstrated that the farmers of the village wanted bamboo mainly for thorny branches for fencing. Considering the usefulness and success of the programme farmers show readiness to involve themselves in the cultivation of bamboo at the community level. Farmers recognised PRA techniques adopted during the study as useful tools to prepare local landuse plans. Case studies conducted to understand the relevance of traditional knowledge and practices about bamboo clump management indicated that most of them have scientific base. Some of the traditional practices are not practical and do not possess scientific base but only were relevant for the past socio-economic conditions of the village ecosystems. The study recommends certain strategies for the promotion of cultivation and sustainable utilisation of bamboo in farming systems