**6. Bamboo livestock feed and ornamental plant**

The Japanese have used the leaves of bamboo as fodder for livestock for hundreds of years. It is also an essential food for the giant pandas in China because they survive only on bamboos. Many bamboos are popularly used as ornamental plants to beautify homes and gardens. Ogunwusi and Onwualu [3] reported that feeding chickens on organic diets containing fresh bamboo leaves lead to 70% weight gain more than those do fed on standard organic diets. This suggests that the fibre in the bamboo leaves enlarge the digestive tract and enable the chicken to consume more and grow faster.

Bamboos are used for making skewers, chopsticks, boats, weapons, matchsticks, containers, poles, bows and arrows, rafts and fishing poles. Various craft products made of bamboo are baskets, tools, handles, hats, traditional toys, mat, flooring material, purses, bags, satchels, tea packaging, floor tiles, general household product, furniture, utensils, musical instruments, etc. Craft products are to be developed differently, marketed and promoted in innovative and various ways if they are to compete and survive in the international market. **Table 5** shows

Bamboo, Its Chemical Modification and Products http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76359 39

Bamboo serves as an excellent alternative to wood in the manufacture of furniture. It competes in market of wood without restrictions. In Asia, there is a significant production of furniture of bamboo. Artists of this continent have refined techniques that qualify these products to exigent markets. Various bamboo furniture products including bamboo panel, composite board and particleboard have been developed in China [76]. Bamboo mat board is being manufactured in China, India, Thailand and Vietnam [5]. Other bamboo furniture products are beds, cupboard, table, upholstery chairs [75], ply bamboo, laminated bamboo, mat ply bamboo, curtains ply bamboo, laminated bamboo strips, mat curtain plywood, bamboo chipboard, floor tiles and composites. Laminated bamboo furniture is on the rise rapidly in the world especially Asia. When bamboo is laminated and used to produce furniture, it is difficult to differentiate it from wood [75]. **Table 5** shows some typical bamboo species and parts used for this purpose.

The application of bamboo in many spheres of life as a suitable replacement for woody biomass in some instances provides arrays of opportunities in material industries. Bamboo being trees that grow and mature in a very short period of time can secure continuous supply of cheap tree and fibres compared to other woody biomasses. In addition, the excellent properties of bamboo enhanced via different chemical modification methods to improve their mechanical and thermal makes their fibre to be competitive with other materials used in the reinforcing of different polymers. With the application of correct treatment, suitable fibres can be extracted from bamboo for various purposes. And as such, several outstanding bamboo fibres can be obtained and incorporate other materials to produce excellent performance composites that can favourably compete with many conventional materials. The use of alkali hydrolysis has been majorly to remove the amorphous regions that are responsible for low resistance to fungus attack in the fibre. The interfacial adhesion between the fibre and other matrices can enhance the inclusion of coupling agents and fibre pre-treatment using acid hydrolysis. The use of bamboo fibres as a replacement for petroleum-derived fibres can breed

the development of eco-friendly products that exert less pressure on the environment.

Bamboo fibres have great potential as an alternative to inorganic fillers and are raw material for fabricating a composite material, and their applicability is being widely investigated. Green

some typical bamboo species and parts used for this purpose [78].

**9. Bamboo furniture**

**10. Conclusion**
