On a visit to Bogura in 2018, Abu Raihan Faruk saw an orange tree and was curious enough to buy a sapling from a nursery in Kurigram and plant it in his yard. It fruited the next year. Encouraged by the taste, he bought more than a hundred saplings and planted a bigha; his first commercial harvest sold for about Tk 50,000. Today his integrated farm, Kazi Agro Food Resort and Ecopark, covers seven and a half acres at Muktaram village in Belgachha union of Kurigram Sadar. Faruk said he sold about Tk 32 lakh of fruit and saplings last year.
Faruk studied botany at Kurigram Government College and chose farming over a salaried job. He expanded the orange orchard himself by grafting; oranges now cover two bighas, and this year he sold about Tk 3 lakh of oranges and about Tk 3 lakh of orange saplings.
A rooftop garden of Baikonur grapes at a bank officer's house in Phulbari got him interested in grapes. In 2021 he planted about 200 saplings of several varieties brought from Russia and Ukraine on one bigha, then grafted his own to add two more. Faruk claims it is the country's first commercial vineyard. This year he sold about Tk 3 lakh of grapes and Tk 10 lakh of grape saplings, which sell for Tk 200 to 500 each depending on variety and size.
Mango covers another two bighas, with about 500 Katimon and BARI Aam-4 trees bringing in about Tk 2 lakh a year. There are some 4,000 areca nut palms; areca, mango, malta, apple and grape grow together on shared land, and ginger is grown under the grape trellises. A nursery of about two bighas produces grafted saplings from the best-yielding trees, sold across Bangladesh and in India. Six workers are employed full time; Abdur Rahim, 55, once a day labourer, now draws a monthly wage.
Rafiqul Islam, owner of Arif Nursery in Nageshwari, travelled about 30 kilometres on 7 October to collect orange and malta cuttings. 'Faruk bhai's oranges are big and taste good,' he said. Faruk believes commercial orange growing could cut imports and one day allow exports.
Kurigram Sadar upazila agriculture officer Mosa. Nahida Afrin said sub-assistant agriculture officers had visited the orchard regularly since it began to advise on care, and that the agriculture department would help anyone who wanted to set up a similar farm. The report is by Prothom Alo's Md Jahanur Rahman.
Photo: Evan-Amos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0); a representative picture of oranges
Source: Prothom Alo
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