One and a half to two lakh a bigha, but no one to sell it to

This grower planted aloe vera about twelve years ago on 12 shotok beside the Karatoya river at Maria village in Amrul union, Shajahanpur, Bogura, buying his first saplings from Natore while neighbours made remarks about the choice. It took roughly three years before the plants produced anything, and the small saplings gave him trouble at the start, but once it came into production he never went back to any other crop. He now grows on over a bigha and raises his own planting material. The work is mostly weeding, dusting with lime so the leaves do not spot, and fertiliser. A bigha yields around 250 maund and sells at 5 to 25 taka a kilo depending on the season, bringing 1.5 to 2 lakh taka a year, more than any other crop there, with about six months of higher-priced peak season. The problem is the buyers: there is no processing factory in the country, so everything goes to local traders, beauty parlours, some Natore dealers and sharbat sellers, and neither he nor his neighbours have any contact with the herbal medicine makers who actually use it. A second grower in the village started on 15 shotok and now works over 2 bighas.