Strolling via Shahnagar village in Bogura presents a rare treat for the eyes – fields decorated with polythene sheets holding minute vegetable seedlings, and sprawling greenhouses dedicated to a budding enterprise.
Farmers on this village trust wisely traded their rice paddies for seedling production, a much more a hit mission.
What began in the 1980s as a modest effort of a man acknowledged in the locality as Shamsu Pagla has now blossomed into an agricultural revolution. Abet then, Shamsu tended to his seedlings, promoting the extra on the local market with out extra special fanfare.
It wasn’t except 1985 that a neighborhood teen, Amzad Hossain – it sounds as if impressed by Shamsu – made up our minds to domesticate chilli seedlings on a half decimal of land. Realising the earnings doable, he rapidly came upon that producing seedlings used to be much more rewarding than extinct slash cultivation.
By 1992, Amzad had expanded his operations to four acres, fully committing to commercial production.
Recently a fifty three-twelve months-extinct, Amzad has not totally transformed his maintain life nonetheless moreover prompted a wave of enterprise prosperity to the village. Shahnagar, a village in Shajahanpur upazila of Bogura, is now famously acknowledged as “village of seedlings”.
Over 300 nurseries were established in the home, producing seedlings that are sold all the arrangement in which via the nation. Every season, seedlings price roughly Tk40 crore are sold and sold in Shahnagar, per nursery homeowners.
Amzad himself has primarily based an agro-seed enterprise that employs eight folk and supplies excessive-quality vegetable seeds alongside the seedlings. As president of the Shahnagar Nursery House owners Vogue Organisation, Amzad has seen how seedling production has revolutionised the placement’s agricultural financial system.
“Many beforehand unemployed girls and males folks now trust jobs. Whereas quite so much of the land frail to be dedicated to rice cultivation, or not it is now frail for seedlings, that are several instances more a hit,” he explained.
Famin Hossain, a school student pursuing a diploma in arithmetic at Government Azizul Haque College, is actually appropriate one of many villagers who trust embraced the seedling enterprise.
Famin makes stutter of factual eight decimals of land to grow vegetable seedlings, incomes an annual earnings of Tk3 lakh to Tk4 lakh. He attributes this success to the excessive request for quality seedlings from Shahnagar, noting that virtually every farmer in the home is now all for seedling production.
Seedling revolution expands
Nearby villages like Baropathar, Chupinagar, and Durlia trust moreover considered a surge in nursery process. Collectively, these areas are home to spherical 300 nurseries spread all the arrangement in which via 250 to 300 acres.
Every twelve months, they compose seedlings of hybrid vegetation corresponding to cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, eggplants, papayas, and chilli. The rising season for these seedlings normally lasts from the Bangla month of Asharh to Kartik (June to November), with customers flocking from areas as a ways as Panchagarh, Barishal, Tangail, and Savar.
Arman Hossain, a neighborhood nursery proprietor, for the time being cultivates seedlings on two acres of land, with production charges ranging from Tk2 lakh to Tk3 lakh per acre, leaving him with a receive earnings of an identical amount.
“Sooner than the nursery enterprise took off, quite so much of the village relied on rice farming, nonetheless now the financial system is extra special stronger,” he acknowledged.
Farmers like Moksedul Islam, who switched from rice farming to seedling production, half linked success tales.
“I frail to use about Tk15,000 to domesticate rice on one acre, incomes factual Tk20,000. If the price of rice dropped below Tk1,000 per maund (37 kg), I would incur a loss. For this reason I switched to seedlings, that are much more a hit,” acknowledged Moksedul, who now produces vegetable seedlings on two acres of land.
Native nursery homeowners estimate that Shajahanpur produces spherical 30 crore seedlings every twelve months. This season, costs ranged from Tk1,200 to Tk2,000 per 1,000 seedlings, producing a mean of Tk48 crore annually.
Amzad Hossain and diverse nursery homeowners now compose illness-free, excessive-yield seedlings by the stutter of evolved suggestions like greenhouse farming, where seedlings are grown in coco peat as an different of soil.
Govt takes passion
Amina Khatun, the agricultural officer for Shajahanpur, acknowledged there are spherical 300 nurseries producing vegetable seedlings in Shajahanpur on my own.
“These seedlings are disbursed nationwide, and we are frequently working to pork up the farmers and toughen their operations,” she acknowledged.
As Shahnagar cements its popularity as the ideal seedling production hub in Bangladesh, local farmers remain hopeful of an perfect brighter future.
With tendencies in know-how and ongoing pork up from agricultural consultants, the village seems poised for continued reveal and prosperity in the years yet to approach.
