Collaboration

Ambi Ply Panels and Doors is one of the lead plywood industries involved in the production of various kinds of plywood and ply doors with an installed capacity of 12 lakh sq.ft per month of plywood production. The industry has used predominantly silver oak coupled with Eucalyptus and other secondary timbers mostly sourced from Karnataka and Kerala. The annual wood requirement of the industry is around one lakh metric tonnes and this is obtained from various sources mostly from traders. As directed in the National Forest Policy 1988 and National Agroforestry Policy 2014, Ambi Ply Panels and Doors has planned to source its raw material requirements on its own either through a captive plantation or through agro and farm forestry plantation.

Accordingly, the technical guidance was requested from Forest College and Research Institute, TNAU, Mettupalayam. Dr.K.T.Parthiban, Professor (Forestry) of Forest College and Research Institute has conceived a comprehensive collaborative research programme coupled with contract tree farming model to promote Melia dubia based plywood farming in Tamil Nadu. Through this model, Ambi Ply has assured a minimum support price of Rs.7500 / tonne of wood for the Melia dubia which is first of its kind in the country and attracted several farmers. The varieties developed by TNAU for Melia dubia is promoted through this collaboration which attracted many farmers and other stakeholders towards tree husbandry. After this association, Ambi Ply Panels and Doors have obtained around 20% of raw material directly from the farmers during the last one year. The industry has mandated to source out 100% of its raw material requirement from 2023 onwards. Simultaneously the industry in association with Forest College is researching to identify alternate plywood species which would be promoted through agro and farm forestry. The industry will establish self reliance in raw material requirement besides catering the needs of environmental amelioration through this agroforestry approach.