Rina did not lose heart when she failed to find a job after graduating. Instead, she set out to grow a fruit orchard.

Woman entrepreneur Rina Akter has succeeded in growing malta in the Barind area of Dhamoirhat in Naogaon.

Having planted malta on three acres of land, her orchard is now full of fruit. If she gets a good market price, she dreams of a handsome profit.

She set up a nursery called Maya Kanan (Bio Agri Farm) in Angrot Telipara village of Dhamoirhat union in the upazila.

Raised in a family of agriculturists, Rina had a special interest in farming from childhood, and building a fruit orchard was her dream. So she started growing malta with her own hands.

Rina Akter said: "In February 2017 I started growing high-quality, one-year-old malta plants on 50 decimals of land. At that time Dr Jamal Uddin, the former agriculture officer of Dhamoirhat upazila, and the current agriculture officer, Md Selim Reza, helped me in every way."

She added: "On the agriculture department's advice I planted a total of 136 saplings, 10 feet apart. The next year the trees flowered, but the flowers were removed. This year the trees flowered well and set a great deal of fruit. Every tree now carries plenty of fruit, and I hope to get 10 to 15kg from each tree."

Harvesting will begin from the last week of August. Malta now sells wholesale at Tk 100 to Tk 120 a kg. At Tk 100 a kg, each tree would give about 10kg of malta worth Tk 1,000, so the 136 trees could bring in Tk 1.36 lakh. If there is no natural disaster, Rina expects to make a profit from selling malta this year.

She said setting up the orchard cost her about Tk 70,000. She bought each sapling for Tk 150, Tk 20,400 in all, and spent a total of Tk 50,000 on labour and other costs. She hopes to sell malta worth Tk 1.36 lakh this year.

Md Selim Reza, Dhamoirhat upazila agriculture officer, said the soil of Dhamoirhat is well suited to growing any fruit. People in the area are busy only with rice, and rice farming now faces many problems.

For this reason farmers in the area are being encouraged to grow profitable fruit. Rina Akter has been given government training in growing malta and dragon fruit, and a malta demonstration has been set up in her orchard.

She has also been supplied with high-quality BARI Malta-1 saplings and receives regular advice. The sweetness and quality of malta and dragon fruit in this area are better than elsewhere, and both fetch good prices in the market. Many unemployed young people in the area have already been inspired to grow fruit after seeing her orchard. The agriculturist hopes the area will become known as a fruit-growing region.

Source: Dhaka Tribune. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.