Nursery business brings high returns against relatively small investment

Mahmuda ShaolinbrNursery business is increasingly becoming popular among a section of people in the urban as well as rural areas because of high returns against relatively small investment. brA person can easily earn Tk 2,000 to Tk 5,000 per day through investing only Tk 25, 000 to Tk 0.5 million, said Amirul Islam, president of Bangladesh Plant Nurserymen Society (BPNS).brMany people both in rural and urban areas in the country have started nursery business over the last few years following large demand for gardening products specially among the city dwellers, he said. brIt's a very prospective sector of the country because rural people, especially city dwellers, are keen to decorate their houses with nursery products, said Md. Shamsul Alam, director general of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).brBesides, the demand for nursery products has gone up because the government and private sector are also taking up massive sapling plantation programmes to protect the ecological balance. So nursery business is flourishing because marginal farmers and small businessmen have been getting support from public as well as private sectors, said the DG of DAEbrThe government has already set up nurseries in every upazila headquarters under the supervision of the DAE to facilitate low-income people to set up nursery businesses, he added.brNursery business has changed the lot of many, specially poor farmers and small businessmen because little investment is needed to set up such a business but profit is very high, BPNS president Amirul Islam said. brAccording to the BPNS, more than 0.5 million people are directly involved in the nursery sector across the country. brAt present, there are more than 10,000 to 12,000 nurseries across the country whereas the number was about 5000 to 8000 about five years ago, according to DAEbr Mahmudul Karim, owner of Rose Nursery at the district headquarters of Kishorganj said that the nursery business had made him self-reliant. brKarim started nursery business seven years ago by taking lease of about 70 decimal of land from the Deputy Commissioner's Office. brFive labourers are now working in his nursery where various kind of fruits, timbers, medicinal plants and seasonal flowers are available.