The Bamboo and Rattan Sectors in Asia: an Analysis of ... - INBAR

3 PRODUCTION-TO-CONSUMPTION SYSTEMS STUDIES
The PCS Approach
Statistical information is just the beginning: strategic planning, policy analysis
and marshaling of political support are necessary for the development of the sectors.
One also needs to know much more about the constraints and the opportunities that
exist in the sectors, and to devise approaches that will take advantage of them. At
any level in the economy, people face a range of constraints from the technical through
to the economic and political.
INBAR supported a series of studies through the Socio-economic Research
Program to understand the range of bamboo and rattan systems that exist in Asia, to
identify constraints and opportunities for sustainable development within particular
systems, and to serve as a basis for identifying strategic focuses for other INBAR
programs. A framework was developed (Belcher 1994) to facilitate comparisons of
one system with another in a systematic way.
A production-to-consumption system (PCS) is defined as the entire set of actors,
materials, activities and institutions involved in growing and harvesting a particular
raw material, transforming the raw material into higher-value products and marketing
the final products. The system includes the technologies used to grow and process
the material, as well as the social, institutional and economic environment in which
these processes operate.
The approach has its roots in agricultural systems research, where various systems
approaches have been developed to accommodate consideration and analysis of a
range of physical, biological and social factors. As Sellen et al. (1993) put it in a
review of PCS research methods:
"Agricultural marketing decisions are made by participants throughout the
commodity systems. Producers decide which crop, with what technology,
how much, and when to produce based on market conditions and signals.
Consumers decide what to buy, in what form, and in what quantity.
Processors, retailers and wholesalers decide what to buy and sell, where to
locate, what type of processing and packaging to use, and how to promote
or advertise the product. Governments decide whether or not they should
intervene in marketing and in what manner, including regulation of markets,
grading, market information, and formulation of indirect policies."
The same kinds of issues are equally important in the forest product sector.
Following this approach it becomes obvious that constraints and opportunities
at any one level of the system must be considered within the context of constraints
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