Shibu Pada, a successful agro entrepreneur

His father was killed by Pakistani occupation army during the 1971 Liberation War and he started selling banana at the age of 11 to support the hard-pressed family.

That was the beginning of struggle for Shibu Pada Roy of Narail's Kalia upazila.

As days passed, he continued climbing the ladders of success through hard work and dedication.

Shibu, now 58, has a combined agricultural farm for fish and vegetable cultivation on a total of 267 acres of land in the upazila.

The farm is one of the largest of its kind in the country's southern region.

There are three large fish enclosures where Shibu cultivates different fish including lobster, ruhit, grass carp and tilapia.

He gets one tonne of fish daily during the dry season from December to March.

Besides, he is involved in a large-scale vegetable cultivation on the banks of the fish enclosures and on usual farmlands.

He gets around 3,000 kg of tomato, 500 kg of bitter gourd and 30 maunds of papaya per week during the ongoing vegetable season.

“My annual sale now stands at around Tk 2 crore. Excluding the expenditure, I can make a profit of around Tk 50 lakh per year,” said Shibu, also a councillor of Kalia municipality, while talking to this correspondent a few days ago.

“After losing my father in 1971, I started selling banana at Kalia Ghat in Narail.  Then I was an 11-year-old boy,” he said, recalling the fateful days.

One day, Shibu met pulse trader Nityananda, who offered him a work at his shop for Tk 300 per month. Shibu agreed and worked there for seven years.

During this time, he studied up to Class VIII. In 1978, he started pulse trading with the capital of Tk 16,000.

As his capital grew, he took lease of 10 acres of land and started cultivating lobster in 1998.

And he continued expanding business by making enclosures for fish cultivation, setting up rice mills and purchasing croplands.

In 2016, he founded a combined agricultural farm on 226 acres of land that he leased for 20 years with Tk 37 lakh.

By now the farm has extended to 267 acres of land.

Around 90 people work daily at the farm during the peak season of winter vegetables while some 20 workers do the job there during off season, said Alok Roy, a worker there.

The vegetables grown at Shibu's farm are free from chemicals and so, those have a good demand, said Monsur Ali, a vegetable trader at Rupganj Bazar of Narail.

People from different areas come to see the farm.

Shibu said he lives a happy life with his mother, wife, three sons and daughter.

Talking to this correspondent, Chinmoy Roy, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Narail, said Shibu Pada has set a laudable example of success in agriculture, which can inspire especially the jobless youths to take such initiatives.

Kalia upazila's fisheries officer Rajib Roy and agriculture officer Subir Kumar Biswas also appreciated Shibu's 'model farming'.