Md Yousuf Ali Shahid is growing beans and a mix of other vegetables on 6 kathas of a neighbour's land and 10 kathas of his own. With another bumper bean crop this year, he is dreaming of success, and he has become self-reliant from selling what he grows.

Md Yousuf Ali is the son of the late Menaj Uddin of Baukathi village in Nabagram union, Jhalakathi Sadar upazila. He makes his living from different kinds of farm work, season by season, all year round.

Yousuf Ali told Jagonews: "We are poor people. From my father I got little besides our homestead. Hard work with our own hands is our fortune. I lease 6 kathas of land in front of the house from a neighbour on an annual contract and pay the owner Tk 4,000 a year. Even so, after all farming costs, what we grow leaves us in a good, profitable position."

"Relying on farm income I have also acquired some land elsewhere, and I farm other people's land as a sharecropper or on term leases. I also farm another 10 kathas behind the house, where winter vegetables have done well. Not just in winter: we grow a crop for every season," he said.

"So far this year I have sold about three maunds of beans (a long, large variety) in two lots, the first at Tk 70 a kg and the second at Tk 50. When I pick the beans and fill sacks, wholesalers come from Jhalakathi, Swarupkathi and Barishal to buy them. Women as well as men help with the farm work, harvesting and bagging," he added.

Locals said Yousuf Ali is a successful farmer. Through farming he has been able to educate his daughter and marry her off, and his son is in Class 4. They are a model farming family in the village.

Md Monirul Islam, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Jhalakathi, said: "There are many marginal farmers who grow valuable crops through their labour. On behalf of the agriculture department we continue to encourage them with all kinds of technical support and incentives. That is why farmers are succeeding."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.