Ethiopia: USAID Fuels Ethiopian Bamboo Sector With U.S.$1.75 Million Grant

USAID awarded a total grant of 1.75 million dollars to African Bamboo Plc on Friday, January 31, 2014, at the latter's headquarters, in the Vatican area of Mekanisa road.

One million dollars of the grant is for developing and testing a heating process to make industrial and commercial quality bamboo using biofuels from organic waste, such as coffee husks and residue from processing the bamboo. The second grant of 750,ooo dollars is said to help the Company prepare feasibility studies and market analyses to attract investment capital and to meet requirements for exports to the United States and the European Union.

African bamboo is one out of a total 475 organisations that applied for the award, which targets supporting innovative projects and integrating clean energy technology into the agriculture sectors of developing countries to improve production.

The Company wants to engage more aggressively in its innovative work in renewable energy and agro-forestry processing now that it has won the award, says Khalid Dury, the general manager.

The Duri family purchased Fortune Enterprise under a privatisation bid in 1998. The Enterprise has 15 years of experience in woodwork. It was in 2012 that African Bamboo was registered in Ethiopia and the Netherlands, establishing a bamboo-based floorboard business.

A study by the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED), in 2009, revealed that Ethiopia has 959,662ha of highland and lowland bamboo. This equates to two thirds of Africa's current total bamboo resources. The Benishangul Gumuz Regional State is home to the largest proportion of it.

Many farmers in the highlands manage and harvest highland bamboo in small stands on their farms; they harvest the culms from November to February and from June to September. The buyers of the culms include local furniture makers and consumers who use it for construction materials.

Large scale bamboo manufacturing is little known in Ethiopia, with only two factories currently in operation, and a third currently having its machinery installed.

While Bamboo Star Agro-Forestry, established four years ago, employs 250 people in the Benishangul Gumuz Region, Assossa Zone, and has 393,000ha of bamboo plantations, Adal Industrial Group Plc is also involved in large scale production at its factory in the Sidama Zone of the Southern Region. The Company, established in 1989, first began its relationship with bamboo by producing incense sticks. In 1995, it expanded its use of the plant and started producing bamboo toothpicks. Nine years later, in 2004, the company introduced technology from the Far East and began producing bamboo flooring, curtains, table mats and charcoal briquettes.

African Bamboo follows on from these two, planning to get involved in bamboo production, and is currently installing machinery at its facility. The company intends to produce bamboo panels for outdoor decking, construction and pre-fabricated bamboo houses. It has already entered into agreements for bamboo farming with over 30 cooperatives, benefiting over 2,000 farmers in the Sidama Zone.

African Bamboo plan to export 100pc of its production. While the total investment needed for production is estimated at 250 million Br, the Company has so far been able to get just half of this amount, Fortune learnt.

"We have already secured 52pc of the market in Germany and are hoping to find the remainder in the rest of the world," Khalid told Fortune.

For USAID's Mark Feierstein, the award illustrates the commitment of the US government to assist Ethiopia's five-year Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) through public-private partnerships.