About six years ago, straight after passing his higher secondary exams, Benazir Hossain went to Malaysia. There he had around Tk 20,000 in his pocket at the end of each month, but he could not settle abroad and came home. Then came unemployment. After many ups and downs he finally started farming native pabda fish, and it has brought him success.

On 23 October alone Benazir sold Tk 17 lakh worth of fish. At least Tk 50 lakh worth of fish is still in his pond.

Benazir, 27, now lives in Hasanpur village of Dumuria Sadar union in Khulna. Many years ago, because of financial hardship, his father moved from Dumuria to Narayanganj, where he ran a business and a pharmacy. All three brothers grew up and studied in Narayanganj. Following his two brothers, Benazir also went abroad. He returned in early 2020 after four and a half years overseas. Shortly afterwards, a fire broke out at the family's business in Narayanganj and all the shops burned down. As despair mounted, they decided to return to their roots and came back to the family home in Hasanpur.

"My other two brothers have also come back," Benazir said. "We all live in Hasanpur now, and both of them have also gone into fish farming." Benazir's pond covers about 700 decimals. He has leased the government water body for five years at about Tk 4 lakh a year. A relative named Alauddin, who already had experience of pabda farming, is his partner. The farm has four permanent workers, and two or three more work each day on a temporary basis.

Benazir netted fish for the first time this season on 23 October. From the morning there was a festive atmosphere around the pond. Along with villagers, officials of the upazila fisheries office came to watch. Pabda exporters to India bought Tk 17 lakh worth of fish from him that day.

Describing how he began, Benazir said: "I had never farmed any kind of fish in my life. But many kinds of fish are farmed in the Hasanpur area, and most people here farm shrimp and carp. I wanted to do something different. When I contacted the upazila fisheries office, they advised me to farm pabda and gave me four days of training accordingly. On the fisheries office's advice, various species of carp were farmed alongside the pabda. In all, it has cost about Tk 22 lakh over the past six months. I sold Tk 17 lakh worth of fish in one day, and I hope to sell another Tk 50 lakh worth."

Abubakar Siddique, senior upazila fisheries officer in Dumuria, said: "During the coronavirus period the fisheries department took up several projects to increase production of native fish. When Benazir, back from abroad, told us of his interest in fish farming, we advised him to farm pabda. We also linked him with his relative, who had previous experience of pabda farming. Under the project for extending fish farming technology services at union level (second phase), Benazir was given training and various kinds of support. So far they have been very successful."

Source: Prothom Alo. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.