Wasif Ahmed Salam on Asian Agro
Nineteen-year-old Wasif Ahmed Salam is currently completing his BBA at City University of London. He also runs his own farm, Asian Agro, which started its journey in November 2016. Salam was an O Level student at Chittagong Grammar School at the time. He started the farm with just four cows bought with his pocket money and salaami. With the help of one worker, he looked after the farm in the initial days. He further developed his project by studying videos on modern rearing techniques from YouTube. In one year, all the cows were sold off with good profits. Salam then bought ten more cows and ventured into dairy agriculture as well. Over the years, the business became more and more profitable.
"I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. I was inspired by my father and grandfather to start the small-scale business and look after everything by myself," says Salam.
Currently, his farm has 121 cows, out of which 20 are kept for dairy. They can produce around 50 litres of milk every day. During this year's Eid-ul-Adha, he sold close to 90 cows, ranging from BDT 50,000 to 4,00,000. Every year, Asian Agro buys new cows from Kushtia, Rajshahi, Bogura and Chaudanga. These cows are raised for one year before being sold during Eid. Asian Agro is financed by Salam's profits and some investors.
The farm is monitored by CCTV cameras. The number of cows, their specific weights and other technical data are handled with software. Apart from the farm, Salam owns an online-based Punjabi shop called Skyler. He launched the shop in 2017 and has sold around 2,000 punjabis in the last Eid. He looks to hire more employees for his ventures in the next few years.
Comments