Fruit farming bears success for entrepreneur

Mofijur Rahman Mafi, Photo: Suzit Kumar Das

After returning home from Kuwait in 2007, to Hat Gobindapur village in Sadar upazila, Mofijur Rahman Mafi was 26.

The young man tried to settle down and tried his luck on various business ventures including running a grocery store, growing seasonal crops and rearing cattle commercially.

But none of his efforts produced much hope. 

Finally, success followed him in 2019 when he put his mind into producing different varieties of exotic and highbred local fruits that are high in demand.

At 40 years of age, Mafi now employs near about a dozen workers who look after his fruit orchard on 42 bighas of land.   

"At last, in 2019, I leased seven bighas of land in the village for an orchard of Kashmiri apple kul," said Mafi.

Seeing the unimpressive and small saplings of the fruit, his father discouraged him to invest in the orchard. But nine months later, witnessing a huge yield of Kashmiri apple kul, his father changed his mind.

That year alone, Mafi sold Tk 30 lakhs worth of Kashmiri apple kul, from an initial investment of only Tk 5 lakh, Mafi added. 

He leased another 25 bighas of land the same year to grow Thai guava-8 and BARI malta-1.

Now he has orange on 6 bighas of land, malta-1 on 2 bigha, three varieties of kul -- including Kashmiri apple, Bol Sundari and seedless kul -- on 16.50 bighas, guava on 23 bighas, dragon fruit on 30 decimals, sapota (sapodilla or chikoo) on 30 decimals and wood apple on 26 decimals of land.

"Alongside these, I've also planted 1,250 saplings of different mango varieties, including Katimon, Surjomukhi and Gourmoti, and 900 lemon saplings," Mafi said.

So far this year, he sold about Tk 75 lakh worth of kul, guava and Malta (a type of blood orange) from his orchard and around Tk 1.5 crore worth of saplings of different fruits to farmers across the country.

While visiting Mafi's orchard, one of the workers, Kanchan Sardar, said he had been working there for two years and he did not have any permanent job before he was hired by Mafi.

People from across the country, especially educated youths, have been paying visits to Mahi's orchard and buying a good number of saplings from him.

Azadul Islam, from Islampur village in Bhurungamari of Kurigram, said, "In 2019, I saw a video on Kashmiri apple kul in Mafi's orchard. I visited the orchard in December that year and in March of 2020, I bought 1,250 saplings of the fruit from his orchard. I sold kul from the plants this year."

Another of his clients, Osman Goni, from Fazilpur village in Noakhali  Sadar upazila, said after watching a video about Mafi's fruit orchard, he contacted him and bought 50 pieces of Kashmiri apple kul saplings from him.

Hazrat Ali, deputy director of Department of Agricultural Extension in Faridpur, said Mafi has become a role model for the unemployed educated youth in Faridpur and many of them have been seeking advice from them for making similar fruit orchards.