Siddique shines in sour plum

Siddique Hossain's success did not come overnight. The young man from Tikuria Chala village in Sakhipur upazila has given his all-out effort to achieve it.

From a frustrated youth over a decade ago, now he owned six plum orchards on 27 acres of leased land.

Like many other unemployed youth, Siddique gave Tk 5 lakh to a manpower broker for an overseas job in South Africa. But the broker fled with the money, shattering all his dreams.

In the next six to seven years he had to struggle a lot to repay the loans he took from the local money lenders and he even had to sell his land.

In 2010, Siddique took a short training from the agriculture department and started his nursery business, taking a loan of Tk 50,000 from a local NGO. Two years later he planted some plum saplings on small scale on leased land.

Now he is cultivating plums on 27 acres land, taking lease from local farmers and expecting to sell the fruits for Tk 50 lakh this season.

A part from his village, Siddique has six more plum orchards in four other adjacent villages

"At the beginning, I cultivated sweet plum, but then the price of the fruit was very low. Later, I decided to cultivate sour plum as it has a high demand and the price is also good," Siddique said.

Siddique said he planted 4,000 plum trees on 27 acres of leased land and raised a nursery of different fruits on another three acres.

Siddique said he is selling the fruit for Tk 160 per kilogram this season.

During a recent visit to Siddique's house, this correspondent saw about a dozen of workers, both male and female, were sorting plums and filling those in sacks for sending the fruits to different markets, including Karwan Bazar, Jatrabari and Shymbazar in Dhaka.

Sakhipur Upazila Agriculture Officer Niyanta Barman said seeing Siddique's success nearly 100 farmers are now cultivating sour plum.