On the slopes of the rolling hills, fruit of many kinds hangs from tree after tree. Everywhere you look there is green, and trees of various local and foreign fruit varieties.

Some trees are laden with fruit while others are coming into flower. There will be some fruit or other in this orchard in all 12 months of the year. It holds nearly 50 kinds of local and foreign fruit trees.

Young agricultural entrepreneur Md Omar Sharif has built the orchard on the hills of Mirsarai upazila in Chattogram, naming it Zohra Agro Farms and Nursery after his mother.

Reportedly, several fruits were first grown in this orchard not just in Mirsarai or Chattogram but in Bangladesh. The orchard grows avocado, Thai sapodilla, peach, cardamom and many other rare and prized fruits and spices from around the world. He has brought about a revolution of foreign fruits on hill soil, adding rare and valuable saplings collected from different parts of the world.

On 20 June, at a seasonal fruit fair organised by the Mirsarai Upazila Agriculture Office, he displayed about 40 varieties of fruit grown in his orchard and won a prize. Visitors to the fair were amazed to see so many fruits from one orchard.

Omar Sharif started the orchard in the hills as a hobby in 2003. The start was not easy: he had to walk about five kilometres from the plains to reach it. Braving sun and rain, day after day of hard work, he built the orchard of his dreams on about 50 acres. His collection includes saplings of many local and foreign flowers, fruits and medicinal plants.

To collect saplings he has travelled abroad several times, to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Turkey, Malaysia, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring India.

His dream was one day to raise saplings of every kind of rare tree in the country. Relying on hard work, dedication and honesty, Sharif is pressing on towards that goal. Inspired by him and with his help, many unemployed young men have set up orchards of their own.

His orchard has mangoes of the Chakapat, Kiujai, Banana, Ramgoi, BARI-4, Gourmoti, Amrapali, Katimon, Brunei King, Chiang Mai, Mariam, Coconut, Miyazaki, Ambika and JC varieties.

There are also tamarind, chenak fruit, year-round malta, Chinese orange, Darjeeling orange, China-3 lychee, Vietnamese coconut, gab (velvet persimmon), avocado, rambutan, longan, latkan (Burmese grape), MB-2 pineapple, Siam Green coconut, Thai sweet lemon, amloki (Indian gooseberry), peach, barricaded malta, Thai sapodilla, Thai amloki, dragon fruit, tinfol, Thai pomelo, matua, abiu, jackfruit, durian, pulasan, lychee and cashew, some 50 fruit trees in all.

There are also cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and clove, and saplings of every kind. His remarkable success has opened new possibilities for the hill farm economy of Mirsarai and of Bangladesh.

"In 2003 I started the orchard in the hills as a hobby, planting saplings of a few varieties. Nobody used to go to that area. Gradually I built up an orchard of various fruit, spice and medicinal trees," Omar Sharif said.

"The road to this point was not easy. You cannot just bring saplings and plant them; each has its own growing method, and it took time to understand that. There were natural disasters too. Still, I did not give up. Success came only after I looked into the growing methods, studied them and put them into practice."

"Collecting the world's newly developed fruits and saplings has become a passion. I then raise saplings from them and supply them across the country," he said.

Mirsarai upazila agriculture officer Pratap Chandra Roy said: "Many local and foreign fruits are being produced in agricultural entrepreneur Omar Sharif's orchard. His whole focus is the nursery and the orchard. He has built this orchard over nearly two decades. At this year's fruit fair he displayed many varieties. The orchard has many rare fruit trees, and following his example many others are setting up orchards."

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