Amjad Khan Chowdhury was a pioneer of Bangladeshi industry and trade who sparked an industrial revolution by putting the country's farm-based economy to proper use. Shykh Seraj first met him in about 1988, at his office in the BRTC building beside the Shilpa Bank in Motijheel.
A call about mushrooms
A few days earlier, Seraj had shown a report on mushroom farming, the first in Bangladesh, on his BTV programme "Mati O Manush", at a time when people thought mushrooms were toadstools. Amjad Khan Chowdhury had started turning farm products into industrial products a couple of years earlier under the name PRAN, and he wondered whether mushrooms could be canned and marketed abroad, when canned mushrooms were being imported. It was a remarkably innovative idea for the time. He spoke of his dream of building a huge link between Bangladeshi agriculture and industry, matching an image Seraj often pictured: a car stopping beside a farmer's field and a hand in a white suit reaching out to shake the farmer's muddy hand.
From papaya to processing
PRAN began contract production and marketing of farm products with papaya in Rupganj, then banana and pineapple around Ghorashal. From there came the idea of adding value and extending shelf life, because without value addition farmers could not profit and commercialisation would fail. In 1992 the first fruit processing plant was set up at Ghorashal, Narsingdi, beginning with pineapple. PRAN now makes more than 2,000 agro-based products sold in 124 countries.
A hundred thousand contract farmers
About 100,000 farmers are directly involved in PRAN's contract production, and many other industrialists followed its path into agro-industry. He employed 80,000 people, and more than two million benefit directly from his work at home and abroad. At PRAN's processing centre in Natore, sour Ashwina and local mangoes that used to rot in orchards are bought at good prices for juice and mango bars, and PRAN's 13 agro-processing plants have given countless farmers confidence.
A dream for dairy
He also dreamed of the dairy industry becoming a success like India's Amul, and said Bangladesh would be self-sufficient in milk by 2020, when domestic production met only 20 per cent of demand. Seraj had planned a documentary on pioneers like him, but he passed away; this piece marked his first death anniversary.
Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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