AgribusinessNurseries cover about 500 hectares in 38 villages of Nesarabad, Pirojpur; twice a week, boats gather on the Shitla canal at Mahmudkathi, selling five to seven lakh seedlings each time.
VegetablesAbdul Matin of Jangirai village in Juri, Moulvibazar, invested Tk 40,000 to bring 80 decimals of overgrown fallow land under tomato, bottle gourd, cucumber and yellow watermelon, using mulch, shade net and grafting to grow tomatoes even in summer.
FruitsICAR's research complex at Umiam has standardised tongue grafting for Sohiong (Prunus napaulensis), so trees bear in 3-4 years instead of 7-9, and developed packaging that keeps the fruit for up to nine days.
VegetablesNurseries in Kamalganj, Moulvibazar, graft tomato shoots onto hardy wild brinjal roots, producing 6.5 to 7 million disease- and rain-tolerant seedlings a season worth Tk 5 to 6 crore.
More than 600 men and women in Natai Uttar, Ramrail and Machhihata unions of Sadar upazila make a living raising grafted and seed-grown seedlings; the upazila agriculture officer puts grafted output at about 500,000 seedlings worth Tk 75 lakh, in a June-October window when ordinary tomato cannot be
Chapainawabganj's Kansat market is selling Ashwina at Tk 80-100 a kilo, BARI-4 Tk 150-180, Gourmoti Tk 160-180, Katimon Tk 170-180 and Banana Mango Tk 180-200; a Shibganj grower who grafted Katimon onto Khirsapat trees found the old wood fruiting in August and has sold Tk 80,000 of off-season GI man
CropsHafez Rokonuddin, a former imam from Nayanpur village in Mymensingh's Bhaluka, has built two commercial latkan orchards on four bighas and developed a selection known locally as "Nayanpuri latkan". By his own account he earns Tk 7-8 lakh a year from grafted saplings alone.
Production at Thakurgaon Sugar Mills has stopped for lack of sugarcane, leaving the mill short of its sugar target for the season.
