Leasing 40 trees for Tk 8,000 plus 13 of his own; selling sap from over 50 trees at Tk 80 a kg
A young man from Cumilla, back from Dubai, began collecting sap from abandoned date palms. He earns several lakh taka in the three-month season, and customers must order sap in advance.
In Jongolpur, Buriching, Cumilla, rows of date palms along field boundaries stood abandoned. A young man back from Dubai remembered that his father used to tap trees and supply sap, and he used to help. So he decided to collect sap from those trees. He owned 13 trees and leased 40 more for Tk 8,000 a year, hiring one helper on contract. Each tree yields an average five litres a day, which he sells at Tk 80 a kg. Because the work is hard he splits the trees in two and taps them in turns, 26 trees one day and 27 the next. The work runs through Agrahayan, Poush and Magh, and in the three months he earns several lakh taka. The report says an investment of Tk 8,000 brings over Tk 10,000 a day. All the sap he collects sells out daily, and larger quantities need advance orders. At first many called him mad and doubted he would find customers; nobody says that now. A local agriculture official says that sap is vanishing because of a shortage of tappers.
Lessons
- 1.Leasing abandoned trees lets you start with very little capital; here 40 trees cost Tk 8,000 a year.
- 2.The sap season is only three months, so most of the income must be made in that window, with the tapping work split and rotated.
- 3.Where demand exists, advance orders give a sales guarantee; doubt at the start fades if you persist.
We published this with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.
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