Tradable Bioresources in West Bengal
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Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 1 Tradable Bioresources in West Bengal Edited by Jose T Mathew Rupam Mandal West Bengal Biodiversity Board Department of Environment, Govt. of West Bengal 2 Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal Citation : Mathew, J.T. and Mandal, Rupam (Eds.). 2016. Tradable Bioresources in West Bengal. West Bengal Biodiversity Board, pp.1-236. Published : 2016 © : West Bengal Biodiversity Board, Kolkata ISBN : 978-81-932401-0-6 Research & Data Compilation : Riddhi Foundation, Kolkata, www.riddhifoundation.org Business Brio, Kolkata, www.businessbrio.com Cover Photograph : Rudra Prasad Das Cover Design : Rudra Roy Chowdhury Printed at : Dreamland 184, Ramchandradharpur, Bali, Howrah Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 3 FOREWORD The importance of Biological Diversity for sustainable development is unquestionable as the biological resources have a critical role to ensure the food and nutritional security along with other needs of the alarmingly growing population across the globe. However, several anthropogenic activities especially overexploitation of the biological resources for commercial purposes are adversely affecting it, resulting to loss of many of these. So, it is vital to identify such biological resources, extent of their present and further potential uses to conserve, use sustainably those and sharing the benefits out of their commercial uses. With this aim, our Board is implementing the first Global Environment Facility (GEF) national project “Strengthening the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act and Rules with focus on its Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Provisions” with the support from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India. We are very happy that National Biodiversity Authority has entrusted us to implement this unique globally important project. The basic objective of it, is to identify, assess and quantify the economic value of biological resources present at local, state and national levels using appropriate methodologies to determine benefit sharing which will help in better implementation of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and its Rules 2004 and inform decision makers on prioritizing conservation action. As a major activity under this project and prerequisite to achieve the goal, we have carried out the “Study on tradable bioresources in West Bengal”. I welcome the publication of the study and hope it will serve as an important source to know the tradable bioresources in the state and several other critical issues related to it. I believe it will be very useful for industries, policy makers, scientists and civil society organizations to formulate suitable plan for conservation and sustainable use of these resources and institutionalizing benefit sharing mechanism for livelihood promotion of the community to make them interested in the whole process. Undoubtedly, this publication is a welcome effort at a time when ABS is much discussed globally. Dr. A. K. Sanyal Chairman West Bengal Biodiversity Board 4 Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 5 PREFACE In spite of the fact that products worth millions of rupees are being traded, the assessment of the extent of tradable bioresources available in the State remained grossly unexplored. The much vaunted cosmetics, nutra-ceuticals, consumables and drugs have their origin from a large number of bioresources - both cultivated and wild. Even a commonly cultivated bioresource has to pass through an intricate chain of trader networks, till it reaches the ultimate user industry that by and large keeps setting lofty targets. This unbridled demand throws up a telling impact on the supply of bio resources especially those from the wild, leading to the near extinction of bioresources which were once common. There has been steady fall in procurement which in turn has led to dependence on other States, gradually depleting those too. The scenario is getting aggravated by the renewed interest worldwide on our traditional knowledge as well as on the herbal products. In the backdrop of this scenario, the West Bengal Biodiversity Board decided to take up the survey on the “Tradable Bio resources in West Bengal” through the UNEP-GEF-MoEF &CC funded project “Strengthening the implementation of Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and Rules, 2004 with focus on its Access and Benefit Sharing provisions”. The rationale behind the decision was that for any conservation programme, primary requirement is the inventorization and quantification of the bioresource concerned and armed with these information, strategies could be chalked out. The Board selected the RIDDHI Foundation & Business Brio Consortium for the study. The Consortium with the help of the Board, contacted the district administration, relevant line department officials and various Non- Government Organisations and collected substantial data. Every district was covered and sample survey and select market study were organised. As this study was first of its kind and no previous data were available, the Board ensured that the grass root community level organisations like Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs), gram panchayats and various village elders in the districts were contacted. 6 Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal The Consortium has thus taken all out efforts to gather the requisite information through secondary as well as primary sources. The survey revealed some startling findings and opened up the door for further study in the areas identified in the report. Value chain estimation of various bioresources through the trader network was found to be highly undervalued and hidden. It revealed how much less our rural people who are the custodian these resources, receive in the process. This book has tried to capture most of the cultivated tradable bioresources (such as the produces obtained from agriculture, horticulture, sericulture, animal husbandry, aquaculture etc.) and the wild tradable ones (like forest and allied products, medicinal plants etc.). It has also given an overview of the bioresources based industries in the state, along with some `way forward` options. All functionaries of the West Bengal Biodiversity Board took part in the exercise and extended their cooperation and made valuable contributions. The Ridhhi Foundation and the Business Brio led by Sri M.N. Roy IAS (retd) had taken it as a challenge to unravel those hitherto unexplored zones and deserves much appreciation. It may be possible that some of the areas are not fully covered; then considering the time and resource constraints, the task could be said to have been well-accomplished. It would be much gratifying if our humble efforts help the readers to view our bioresources in a different perspective with respect to its wide ranging potential uses and our absolute dependence on it. This insight would certainly help the user industry as well as the real conservers of our bioresources alike as well as the goals of conservation as a whole. That is exactly what the Board stands for which is vowed to see that benefits from biorsources pass to the commons (through the revolutionary “ABS Mechanism”), paving way for saving the bioresources while making sure that the industry get these resources on a sustainable basis. Editors Jose T Mathew Rupam Mandal Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 7 Table of Contents Acknowledgement 13 Abbreviations 15 CHAPTER - I 17 TRADABLE BIORESOURCES OF THE STATE – A HITHERTO UNEXPLORED AREA 17 1.1 Introduction 17 1.2 Approach to the Study 18 1.3 Methodology 19 1.2.1 Group discussions with line departments in districts 20 1.2.2 Interaction with Trade Bodies 22 1.2.3 Interaction with Individual Traders 23 1.2.4 Visits to Markets/Haats 24 1.2.5 Interaction with Industry 25 1.2.6 Data Collection Instruments 26 1.2.7 Geographical Coverage 26 1.2.8 Data Collation and Review 27 1.2.9 Data Estimation and Analysis 29 CHAPTER – II 30 AGRICULTURE 30 2.1 An Overview of Agriculture in West Bengal 30 2.2 Cereals 31 2.2.1 Rice (Oryza sativa) 31 2.2.1.1 Aromatic Rice 33 2.2.1.2 By-products of Rice 36 2.2.2 Wheat (Triticum aestivum) 38 2.2.2.1 By-products of Wheat 38 8 Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 2.2.3 Maize (Zea mays) 38 2.2.4 Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) 39 2.3 Minor Millets 39 2.4 Pulses 41 2.5 Oil Seeds 42 2.5.1 Data on Oil Seeds 43 2.6 Tea (Camellia sinensis) 44 2.6.1 Data on Tea and Tradable Value 44 2.7 Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) 46 2.8 Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) 46 2.8.1 Data on Sugarcane in West Bengal 46 2.8.2 Gur (Sugarcane Molasses) 47 2.9 Natural Fibres 47 2.10 Other Natural Fibres in West Bengal 48 Reference: 49 CHAPTER III 50 HORTICULTURE 50 3.1 An Overview of Horticulture in West Bengal 50 3.2 Vegetables 52 3.3 Fruits 59 3.4 Flowers 67 3.5 Spices 71 3.6 Plantation Crops (other than tea) 73 3.7 Bamboo (Bambuseae dendrocalmus) 75 3.8 Broom Stick and Mat Stick 75 3.9 Aquatic Plants 76 3.10 Miscellaneous 78 CHAPTER IV 80 SERICULTURE 80 4.1 An overview of Sericulture in West Bengal 80 Tradable Bioresource in West Bengal 9 4.2 Present status of Sericulture in West Bengal 80 4.3 Data on Sericulture in West Bengal 81 4.4 Cocoon Markets in West Bengal 84 4.5 Silk Textile in West Bengal 85 CHAPTER V 86 ANIMAL RESOURCES 86 5.1 Overview of Animal Resources in West Bengal 86 5.2 Livestock Population in West Bengal 88 5.3 Poultry Bird 92 5.4 Ornamental or Pet Bird 93 5.5 Hide and Skin 94 5.6 Production Scenario in the Livestock Sector of West Bengal 94 5.7 By-Product