Lalmonirhat youth attains self-reliance through fruit farming venture

LALMONIRHAT, July 25: Nur-e-Alom Bappy (40) had been working at a readymade garment factory in Dhaka after graduation in 2015 ; but during the coronavirus pandemic he lost job as the authorities went for a mass retrenchment process.
After losing job, he fell in a great danger with his family members. He returned home in
Lalmonirhat sadar and started thinking about his future. His younger brother Najmul Islam just completed his master degree and was searching for a job. But at one stage both brothers made a plan on initiating an agro farm.
They had 30 bighas of land of their own. They were searching for a suitable project from YouTube.
They watched a lot of videos on agro farming with malta, orange, kulboroi ,dragon fruit and many others in YouTube.
After a lot of thinking, they decided to make a Kulboroi orchard. They planted 350 saplings of sweet applekulboroi spending Tk 0.1 million.
Next year they made an income of Tk40,000 from the garden and in the third year they earned Tk 0.15 million and in the fourth year Tk 0.3 million from selling Kulboroi.
After harvesting Kulboroi, the wholesaler who purchased his garden sold Tk0.6 million worth of fruit at retail market.
After successful return from Boroi garden, they extended their garden into 20 bighas of land.
Now there are 700 malta, 400 orange, 450 Boroi, 150 lotkon, 200 dragon and 100 mango tree in their comprehensive orchard said Najmul. From 2020 to 2026, in only six years they turned their garden into a very profitable project.
They sold 20 maunds of lotkon from the garden and earned Tk 14,000 as the market price was lower than the previous year.
Recently they make a handsome profit every year from their garden. Visiting their
garden on last Tuesday, it was seen that there was a huge quantity of malta in every tree.
The size and colour of malta resemble like those of imported malta, said Bappy.
Najmul Islam said that once he ran after a job but now he is happy with his garden. He urged the youths not to worry or feel frustrated. If the government comes forward to train unemployed youths
and give financial support, the country will go ahead, he commented.
When asked, Dr Shaikhu Arefin, deputy director (DD) of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Lalmonirhat, said that he had visited Bappy's orchard many times.
"If unemployed youths are interested to launch such fruit farming project, we must give them all kind of technical support," he added.
ahasnathrana@yahoo.com