Tk 40k on 700 mussels, 400 pearls sold for Tk 80k, but no local market

A 30-year-old young man in Patuakhali, who had not got past secondary school and had found neither a job nor a business, watched a YouTube video of a pearl farmer from Lalmonirhat in January 2019. He got hold of the farmer's mobile number and contacted him, and the farmer came to his home and taught him hands-on. He disinfected a disused 30-decimal pond next to his house with lime, collected 700 mussels from canals and beels, operated on them to insert images, and kept them floating in the pond in net packets of nine each. The mussels' only feed is cow dung. Design pearls take nine months; round pearls take about two and a half years. In the first year costs were higher because he brought a trainer from far away: about Tk 40,000, including preparing the pond and collecting the mussels. After nine months he got 400 design pearls from the 700 mussels and sold them for Tk 80,000. He now has 8,000 mussels in three ponds. But the report's big caution is the market: demand for design pearls is mainly abroad, especially in India; one or two traders from India come and buy them, and a local market has not yet developed. So although many young men in the village are interested, farming is not growing.