Bagerhat engineer sees success in shamam fruit farming
A Bagerhat local has turned to shamam fruit (cantaloupe), leaving behind his salaried job of Tk45,000, and his risk dividends are already paying off.
The move did not come without warnings. His father opposed him, and no one had ever grown shamam in the district.
After getting a diploma in mechanical engineering from Khulna Polytechnic Institute, Faisal Ahmed started working for a private organisation in 2010. But in 2020, he quit his job and started growing shamam fruit in his village in Bagerhat.
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Now he earns around Tk15 lakh a year.
At present he has 10,000 shamam plants on 1.5 acres of land in Mollahat upazila of the district. One acre of land can yield around 25 tonnes of the fruit and he harvests shamam worth Tk4.5 lakh every two and a half months.
"I thought of shamam production given its high demand in Bangladesh and I imported the seeds of the fruit from Saudi Arabia. My first yield was promising, which motivated me to cultivate the fruit on more land. Each fruit weighs 2-3 kilograms on average and wholesale, 1kg shamam goes for Tk100-200," said Faisal.
Faisal said the fruit can be grown throughout the year as long as the weather is not extremely cold. After planting, it takes 75 days to harvest the fruits. Including the cost of fertilisers, seeds, and bamboo platforms, the average cost of cultivation per acre of land is Tk10,000-Tk20,000.
Being an engineer, he did not have very good knowledge and experience in agriculture, let alone shamam fruit production. So, he watched some videos and gathered basic knowledge on the matter.
Sheikh Tipu Sultan, Faisal's father, said, "I opposed him when he decided to leave his job and start growing shamam. However, I later helped him when he had a good yield the very first time. Some farmers in the village have also shown interest in producing the fruit."
Faisal employed 12 labourers to assist him and his success in shamam production has inspired other farmers in the village to cultivate the fruit, Tipu Sultan added.
Currently, wholesalers from Gopalganj, Dhaka, and a few other districts buy the fruit from him. As demand for the fruit is likely to increase, he expects buyers from other districts in the future.
Shefali Poddar, who looks after the plants, said she has been working at Faisal's farm for two years.
"What I earn here supports our children's education as well as our family's expenditure," she added.
Mollahat upazila agriculture officer Animesh Bala said shamam has sugar, beta-carotene, vitamin-C, potassium, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and other nutritional content, and Bangladeshi farmers have recently shown interest in producing this fruit.
"Faisal is the first to cultivate shamam commercially in Bagerhat. We provide all types of support to him and anyone interested in cultivating this fruit can come to us for guidance and assistance," he added.
Besides shamam, Faisal produces tomatoes, papaya, watermelon, black sugarcane, eggplant, and indigenous seasonal fruits.
