Production and processing of rattan


Book Description

Due to its rapid growth and ability to adapt to a wide variety of ecological conditions, rattan provides a valuable crop that can be grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. Its use in furniture production also means that effective rattan cultivation serves as a reliable alternative to timber exploitation. Clearly laid out and illustrated throughout, this technical guide gives a general overview of the cultivation, harvesting, treatments, transformation and commercialisation of rattan.




Rattan Glossary


Book Description

This volume contains a glossary on terms and terminologies used in the rattan sector. The glossary is structured according to the following major sections: rattan resources (biology, management, plantations, harvesting); rattan as a raw material (transport, storage, grading and post-harvest handling, rattan trade); rattan processing (for local artisanal uses; for industrial level furniture manufacturing); and rattan trade in raw, furniture and other products. In order to give special emphasis to the emerging rattan sector in Africa, a separate compilation of terms specifically focusing on those used in Africa is added.




Rattan


Book Description

We investigated the production and trade in rattan along the supply chain. We focused our study on Indonesia, the global leader in natural rattan production, and more specifically, West Kutai in East Kalimantan. Our analysis of local livelihoods in 2004 and 2011 indicates that communities have abandoned rattan as their main source of income, primarily because of low rattan farm-gate prices. Our interviews and econometric analysis indicate that rattan prices are kept artificially low through price fixing within a cartel of rattan traders. Farm-gate prices are also kept low by export quotas. The result has been a substantial reduction in export volumes of Indonesian rattan products (as opposed to unprocessed and semi-processed rattan). Other contributing factors include reduced overseas demand, the relative strength of the rupiah and the loss of Indonesia’s competitive edge over other countries. Compared to its competitors, Indonesia has higher transaction costs, including taxes, tariffs, administrative costs and transportation costs. We conclude that a lack of reliable data on rattan resources and unstable policy have hampered efforts to develop sustainable management strategies and annual allowable harvest volumes. We recommend the development of a national rattan action plan, based on reliable scientific data. This would require more accurate information on rattan trade, future development in the rattan products market, production capacity in forests and planted rattan gardens, and international trade, including illegal trade. Such information could guide rattan policies, specifically determining what trade legislation would have the best macro and microeconomic results for Indonesia.
















Voices from the Forest


Book Description

This handbook of locally based agricultural practices brings together the best of science and farmer experimentation, vividly illustrating the enormous diversity of shifting cultivation systems as well as the power of human ingenuity. Environmentalists have tended to disparage shifting cultivation (sometimes called 'swidden cultivation' or 'slash-and-burn agriculture') as unsustainable due to its supposed role in deforestation and land degradation. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that such indigenous practices, as they have evolved over time, can be highly adaptive to land and ecology. In contrast, 'scientific' agricultural solutions imposed from outside can be far more damaging to the environment. Moreover, these external solutions often fail to recognize the extent to which an agricultural system supports a way of life along with a society's food needs. They do not recognize the degree to which the sustainability of a culture is intimately associated with the sustainability and continuity of its agricultural system. Unprecedented in ambition and scope, Voices from the Forest focuses on successful agricultural strategies of upland farmers. More than 100 scholars from 19 countries--including agricultural economists, ecologists, and anthropologists--collaborated in the analysis of different fallow management typologies, working in conjunction with hundreds of indigenous farmers of different cultures and a broad range of climates, crops, and soil conditions. By sharing this knowledge--and combining it with new scientific and technical advances--the authors hope to make indigenous practices and experience more widely accessible and better understood, not only by researchers and development practitioners, but by other communities of farmers around the world.




Sustainable and Nonconventional Construction Materials using Inorganic Bonded Fiber Composites


Book Description

Sustainable and Nonconventional Construction Materials Using Inorganic Bonded Fiber Composites presents a concise overview of non-conventional construction materials with a strong focus on alternative inorganic bonded fiber composites and their applications as construction components. It outlines the processing and characterization of non-conventional cementitious composites, which will be of great benefit to both academic and industrial professionals interested in research, development, and innovation on inorganic bonded fiber composites. The book gives a comprehensive review of the innovative research associated with building components based on inorganic bonded composites. Exploring both natural fibers as reinforcing elements and alternative inorganic binders based on agricultural and industrial wastes, this book also considers the performance and applications of fibrous composites as construction materials and components. - Dedicated to analyzing recent developments in inorganic fiber composites research - Discusses the broader subjects of processing, characterization, performance, and applications of non-conventional construction materials




AD39E Non-timber forest products


Book Description




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