Mussel and pearl culture

About the business

Put a small nucleus into a freshwater mussel in a pond and the mussel starts laying nacre around it; seven to eleven months later that coating is a pearl. The work is not difficult and the cost is low. Abdur Rahman of Abhaynagar in Jashore started with two mussels after watching YouTube, then took a three-day course at the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute in Mymensingh. By his account, selling Tk 2,00,000 of pearls in a year cost him Tk 30,000-40,000 in all, of which Tk 15,000 was pond rent. Pearls sort into three grades, A, B and C; grade A sells wholesale at Tk 500-600 each, and across all grades he sold between Tk 100 and Tk 600 a piece. Mussels share a pond with fish and eat the feed given to the fish, so there is no separate feed cost. But the risk has to be said plainly. The cycle is long - money takes close to a year to come back. And the buyer is uncertain: pearls are bought only by jewellery firms that do their own design work. There is no regular market or auction in the country and nobody setting a price. So you need the buyer's name before you seed the mussels, or a year later you will be holding pearls instead of money.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• Surgical kit - a mussel opener and fine instruments - plus tools for patterning the nuclei. On the Jashore farm five people make nuclei and two do the patterning.Equipment
• Freshwater mussels (about Tk 5 each), patterned nuclei (about Tk 6 each), nylon net bags (about Tk 40 each), antibiotic and medicine.Starting stock
• Trade licence from the city corporation or municipality if run as a commercial farm or when applying for credit: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000.Licence
• Operating on a mussel to insert the nucleus. The Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute in Mymensingh runs a three-day course on freshwater mussel pearl culture. This is the only hard part of the work.Skill
• A mussel source - local canals and beels or collectors - and a nucleus supplier. The Jashore farm sells nuclei itself, and there are farms in Naogaon and Kotchandpur too.Supplier
• A pond or a water tank. The Jashore farm holds 3,000 mussels in a 20 ft by 10 ft rooftop tank and 7,500 in two ponds. Pond rent there was Tk 15,000 a year.Workspace

How the work is done

1. 1Find the buyer first. Pearls are bought only by jewellery firms that do their own design work. There is no regular pearl market or auction in the country, so have at least two named buyers before you seed a single mussel.
2. 2Get trained. The Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute in Mymensingh runs a three-day course on freshwater mussel pearl culture. Without learning the operation properly the mussels die and the whole batch is lost.
3. 3Collect mussels. Freshwater mussels are taken from local canals and beels, and only healthy ones aged one and a half to two years are usable.
4. 4Hold the mussels in water for seven days to a month to settle, then operate - inserting two patterned nuclei into each.
5. 5Keep them for one day in water mixed with antibiotic after the operation. That single day of care decides how many mussels survive.
6. 6Put ten mussels in each nylon net bag and float them one to one and a half feet deep in the pond.
7. 7Keep them in the same pond as fish. The mussels eat the feed given to the fish, so there is no separate feed cost - the biggest advantage of this method.
8. 8Lift a few mussels from time to time to check the nacre is forming around the nucleus. After seven to eleven months take them out, open them and collect the pearls.
9. 9Grade the pearls into A, B and C. A grade A pearl fetches Tk 500-600 wholesale and the rest less. Sell them ungraded in one lot and the buyer will pay the lowest price for all of them.
10. 10Keep a second income line. The Jashore grower sells nuclei at Tk 6, nylon nets at Tk 40 and collected mussels at Tk 5 to other growers, and runs training - and that income covers costs through the year of waiting for the pearls.
11. 11Ask about agricultural credit. Bangladesh Bank added pearl culture as an eligible sector in its FY 2024-25 agricultural and rural credit policy, and rural loans up to Tk 50,000 may carry no charge beyond the DP note stamp.

Sources

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

• শুঁটকি উৎপাদন ও মুক্তা চাষেও ঋণ দেবে ব্যাংক (কৃষি ও পল্লিঋণ নীতিমালা ২০২৪-২৫)

  Collected: 30 Aug 2024

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

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