Unemployed youth ‘finds gem’ in unused pond

Once unemployed, 30-year-old youth Sujan Hawladar is now a successful pearl farmer.

He first started culture of pearls in a small pond beside his house in Chapli village of Kalapara upazila. Now he has set up his pearl farm in three unused ponds in the area.

Without passing secondary level in school, Sujan, son of Ali Hossain Hawladar, had not been able to succeed in landing a job or a profession. But thanks to a Youtube tutorial he saw in 2019, on how to cultivate pearls, Sujan has found his source of financial independence.

All that changed in January of 2019 when the video clip on pearl culture -- posted by pearl farmer Ruhul Amin from Balapukur village in Lalmonirhat's Aditmari upazila -- aroused his interest in the trade.

After he spoke with Ruhul Amin over phone, Ruhul Amin himself came over to his house and gave him hands-on training on techniques of cultivating pearls in ponds.

Ruhul Amin told this correspondent that after collecting quality oysters found in natural water bodies, previously fabricated objects with different designs or round-shaped nuclei (locally called 'pearl seed') are placed inside each oyster.

After several oysters are submerged together in the pond in a mesh pouch for 45 days, the oysters start forming pearls around the objects placed in them.      

Manure has to be applied in the pond for the next 7 to 8 months till the pearls are matured enough for extraction, Ruhul added. 

While visiting Sujan's pearl farm, pouches filled with oysters were seen submerged in a pond, with tops of the pouches attached to floating devices that are tied to rows of ropes. Workers were seen applying manure in the water. 

Sujan said he initially collected 700 freshwater oysters from local water bodies for culturing pearls in the first pond that had an area of 30 decimals.

Before submerging, the placing of the designed object or the nucleolus is done at home. Then nine oysters are put in a specially crafted mesh pouch, which is later submerged in the pond with a floating device on top. Each pouch is placed three feet apart in the pond.

It takes about nine months for a designed pearl to mature, while it takes about two and a half years for a round pearl to mature.  

Sujan said cost of his first production of pearls was a bit high because on top of the Tk 40 thousand he spent on preparing the pond, he also had to bear expenses of his trainer Ruhul. But nine months later, he made Tk 80,000 from 400 pearls that matured properly.

He is now culturing about eight thousand oysters in total three ponds and he hopes to make a good profit from sale of pearls.

There is a market for designed artificial pearls in the country as well as in foreign countries. Several Indian buyers often collect local pearls, but there is no proper distribution channel in the country to cater to the local demands.

Without a proper distribution channel developed in the country, it would be difficult for local artificial pearl producers to sustain in the long run, Sujan observed.