Coffee on fallow land at Tk 2,500-3,000 a kg; about Tk 30,000 a month from fruit and seedlings
A woman in Jaldhaka, Nilphamari planted coffee on fallow land beside her home in 2018, later adding rambutan, cocoa and dragon fruit. Yields have not been even, yet she earns about Tk 30,000 a month after costs.
A woman in Jaldhaka, Nilphamari lost her husband in 2014 and kept running her stationery shop at Koimari bazar to put her two sons through school. According to Prothom Alo, on her elder son's suggestion she cleared fallow land next to the house and began growing coffee in 2018, bringing a few Arabica seedlings from Kishoreganj upazila. One by one she added rambutan, cocoa, dragon fruit and passion fruit, and within three years the trees began to bear. Including house, pond and orchard she has five bigha, two of them under coffee. She has been selling coffee for about five years at Tk 2,500 to 3,000 a kg, and rambutan at Tk 1,000 to 1,200 a kg. Yields are uneven: last year she sold 400 kg from ten rambutan trees, but this year three trees gave 80 kg and the other seven bore nothing. This year she sold Tk 5,000 of ornamental fish fry. After all costs, her income from fruit and seedlings is about Tk 30,000 a month. The garden now holds 2,500 coffee seedlings, 300 rambutan seedlings and 200 cocoa seedlings. With the earnings she bought another 75 decimals of land. Her younger son helps sell fruit and seedlings online.
Lessons
- 1.Coffee, rambutan and cocoa take about three years to bear; keep another income (such as a shop) through the waiting years.
- 2.Spread income across fruit, seedlings and fish fry rather than one crop, because yields swing from year to year.
- 3.Selling fruit and seedlings online widens the customer base.
We published this with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.
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