A nursery on sharecropped land expects over Tk 3 lakh in the five-month winter season; 150+ nurseries in Alankarkathi

In 38 villages of Nesarabad upazila, Pirojpur, several hundred nurseries have grown up on 500 hectares, and Alankarkathi village in Swarupkathi Sadar union is known as the nursery village. In the Ajker Patrika report one nursery owner says he has been in the trade for 20 years. He once worked in other people's nurseries and now runs his own on sharecropped land. It holds 15 to 20 kinds of flower, fruit and timber saplings. November to March is the peak flower season, and over those five months he hopes to sell more than Tk 3 lakh of flowers and saplings. On both sides of the road in the village there are more than 150 nurseries, each regularly employing 5 to 7 workers, so over a thousand people have work. One woman worker says she earns Tk 200 a day in a nursery and that this extra income keeps her household going well. Traders expect about Tk 100 crore of flowers and flower saplings to be sold in the area this winter. Buyers come from far away, and both retail and wholesale sales take place. One overseas visitor said prices in Dhaka were high, so she came here. The upazila agriculture officer says 6,000 to 7,000 people are involved in the trade.