International Journal of Horticulture 2015, Vol.5, No.11, 1
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chemicals for the match heads and the friction surface
of the boxes. With the exception of the sulphur, all the
basic raw materials are produced within India. A full
appreciation of the employment potential of the match
industry should also consider the workers involved in
the production of all of these raw materials.
Historically, the Indian match industry depended on
imported wood including aspen (Populus tremula)
from Sweden, Canada, America and Russia; cotton
wood (Populus deltoides) from Canada; balsam poplar
(Populus balsamifera) from Manchuria; and linden
(Tilia japonica) from Japan. But the government
quickly moved to encourage the use of indigenous
woods by restricting the import of foreign poplars.
One result of the early use of poplar wood has been
that the consumer continues to associate good quality
matches with light colored wood, placing further
limitations on the selection of indigenous species.
A large number of Indian tree species have been found
suitable for use in the match industry. Among the most
important Indian match woods are
Bombax ceiba
which is good for boxes as well as splints, Indian
aspen
, Evodia roxburghiana
and white mutty,
Ailanthus
excelsa
both suitable for high quality splints. Among
many species tested, only a few are acceptable for
making high quality boxes and match splints. One
such species for match splints is
Ailanthus excelsa
which is drawn from farm lands, social forestry and
agroforestry practices and from the forest fringes.
Most of the match industries are having their own
agents to supply the raw materials to the Match
Splints industry operated in Tamil Nadu. The match
industries are facing several constraints in getting the
raw materials and hence special effort has been taken
to assess the sources of supply of raw materials and
the performance of match industries in the context of
meeting the demand for the splints in the western part
of Tamil Nadu as part of the students exposure visit to
the Match Splints Industry and to infuse the confidence
to the students in establishing such potential demand
driven industry in Tamil Nadu.
2 Design of the Study
The Western Part of Tamil Nadu is blessed with the
textile related business and it has the name of Cotton
Zone of Tamil Nadu. Amidst this textile business, one
industry in small scale engaged in receiving the
Ailanthus excelsa
wood as raw materials for making
match splints and the finished output (Match Splints)
is being sent to different match making industries in
the southern belt of Tamil Nadu which is an unrelated
business in this zone.
The Horticultural College and Research Institute of
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Periyakulam is
running an academic program which runs to four year
duration in which Agribusiness Management is a
course which taught capacity building and confidence
building exercise on how to establish an Agribusiness
enterprise and how efficiently one can run the
enterprise with the available resources. In this
circumstance, the second year students of Horticultural
College and Research Institute were taken to different
agribusiness enterprises to have an exposure visit to
infuse confidence among them. The Ideal Match
Splints Limited located in Western Part of Tamil Nadu
is one such small scale industry aimed at for the
students exposure visit.
The Match Splints Industry employs 15 casual wage
laborers, one permanent supervisor and they were
managed by the Managing Director of the Company.
All the respondents in the industry were personally
discussed and their experiences were incorporated in
this paper following a case study approach. The data
gathered were subjected to the descriptive statistics
like mean and percentage analysis only and the survey
was conducted and the results were analyzed and
documented for guidance and follow up by the
agripreneurs and the data related to the year 2014.
Since the data presented are based on case study
approach, one could understand the strength and the
limitations associated with the findings.
3 Results and Discussion
The main objective of writing this paper is to highlight
the performance of Match Splints Industry in Western
Tamil Nadu and to highlight the strengths associated
with the industry to guide and motivate the young
agripreneurs in that field on the following heads
Match Splints and Matches Manufacturing Units in
Tamil Nadu
Sources of RawMaterials supplied to the Match Splints
Industry
Out Turn of Match Splints
Methodology of Processing of Match Wood
Details of Human Resources Employed
Cost of Production of Match Splints
