Imdadul Haque is 38. Out of love for plants, he left a well-paid job in Dhaka and returned to his village to start a nursery business. That changed the young man's fortunes: he is now known as a successful farmer and nursery entrepreneur, and in the past six months alone he has earned about Tk 12 lakh selling seedlings. His success shows that with will and hard work, a dream career can be built in the village too.

Imdadul Haque is the son of the late Bishu Mia of Kansol village in Ullapara upazila, Sirajganj. He is the fourth of five brothers and the father of one child. To support his family he worked as a chef at a restaurant in Dhaka, earning Tk 40,000 a month, and was skilled at cooking many local and foreign dishes.

While still in the job, he planted 10 mango seedlings of different varieties in the yard of his village home as a hobby, and then many kinds of fruit seedlings one after another. Within a few years every tree began to bear fruit, and the sight sparked a dream of doing something new. His green journey began with an investment of just Tk 10,000. Eventually he left his job to return to the village and set up a nursery called Imdad Garden.

Imdadul Haque is not just a nursery owner but an inspiration in the area. Young entrepreneurs and farmers come from different places for his advice, and many crowd in to see the fruit trees and seedlings in his yard. Through him, many are finding new opportunities and new dreams in agriculture.

"It all started as a hobby," Imdadul Haque said. "While working in Dhaka, I planted 10 mango seedlings in the yard of my home. Then one by one I started planting malta, orange, grape and many other fruit seedlings. Within a few years every tree began to bear fruit. Whenever I got a weekly holiday I came to the village to look after them. Gradually the yield grew. Seeing that, many people became keen to get seedlings. I then started making seedlings by grafting. Demand kept growing, and gradually my seedlings spread beyond the area to distant places."

The coronavirus hit the restaurant trade hard and many businesses closed. Seeing the demand for his seedlings, he decided to start a nursery. In 2023 he left his job, came back to the village and took 20 decimals of land from a friend, where he set up the nursery and began producing seedlings of many local and foreign fruit varieties.

Imdadul manages better with the nursery business than he did with a job. His nursery offers seedlings of attractive varieties from mango, lychee, jam, guava and malta to China orange and grape. He supplies seedlings across the country, with China orange and grape seedlings proving especially popular. Most seedlings sell during the rainy months, both online and offline, though online brings the bigger response. In the past six months he has sold about Tk 12 lakh worth of seedlings, something he once could not have imagined.

One worker is employed at the nursery regularly. After all costs, the income lets him support his family comfortably. The business has given him not only financial independence but peace of mind. His biggest inspiration was his mother, who looked after the trees at home while he worked in Dhaka. Some people said then that he was ruining his future; some called him mad to his face. His mother gave him courage and inspiration from the start. A friend living abroad also played a part: he gave the 20 decimals of land for the nursery, which Imdadul can use for free until the friend returns home.

Imdadul wants to build a nursery where all kinds of high-quality local and foreign fruit seedlings are available, with flower and fruit seedlings under one roof. For this he has leased another 50 decimals of land, where he will produce seedlings on a larger scale for the wholesale market. Alongside the nursery, he grows seasonal vegetables on his own farmland and is getting good yields there too.

Being from a farming family, he already had some idea of agriculture and plant care. "When I started planting trees at home, I began watching YouTube videos to learn how to care for different plants," Imdadul Haque said. "After starting the nursery, caring for many kinds of plants every day gave me the chance to learn a lot hands-on. There is also a group of plant lovers where we regularly discuss plant care, diseases, fertiliser use and other topics. It gives a lot of important information and makes solving problems easier."

So far Imdadul has not faced any major losses. He mainly uses vermicompost as fertiliser, which is very good for the plants: they get fewer diseases, and growth and quality stay good. He tries to be careful at every step, from making seedlings to planting, watering and weeding. "Setting up and running a nursery is not easy at all," he says from experience. "Starting a nursery alone without any training or advice from experienced growers or agriculture officials is risky. It can often lead to financial and mental losses."

His advice to garden lovers: "It is better not to start anything on a big scale. You should gain experience gradually from a small scale and move forward. That keeps the risk low and the chances of success much higher. I have walked that path myself."

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