On the salty coastal soils where ordinary crops struggle, young agri-entrepreneur Belal Hossain of Paikgachha in Khulna has made malta pay. His five-bigha orchard of China mandarin malta in Malath village, on the bank of the Kapotaksha river, has produced a bumper crop this year.
Belal planted the orchard about four years ago and now has more than 400 trees, which with regular care are yielding more than he expected. Good size and taste keep demand up, and he sells from the orchard at Tk 250 a kilogram. Orchard worker Sirajul Sardar says branches were close to breaking under the weight of fruit, so many maltas had to be thinned early.
Malta was not where Belal started. About 26 years ago he began a nursery business with just Tk 2,700 his grandmother gave him. It has grown into a mixed fruit orchard of about 12 bighas, with guava, lychee, dragon fruit, jujube and many local and foreign mango varieties, and the nursery employs 12 workers all year.
His method is to test first and sell later. He grows different varieties to learn about them and see whether they suit the area; once a variety proves itself, he makes grafted saplings from those trees and sells them wholesale and retail. "This year the China mandarin malta has given a bumper crop, and I am getting a good price," he says.
Visitor Amanullah Aman says he had never seen malta yield like this in the saline coastal belt. Kamal Hossain, general secretary of the Paikgachha nursery owners' association, describes Belal as a successful nursery owner and mixed-fruit grower.
Paikgachha upazila agriculture officer Ekramul Hossain says the agriculture office has inspected the orchard and is giving Belal technical support, and expects his example to draw more coastal farmers into fruit growing. The report was filed by RTV News Paikgachha correspondent Md Asadul Islam. The photograph shows citrus fruit in general, not Belal's orchard.
Photo: USDA (photographer not named) / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: RTV Online
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