Due to his unabated passion for fruit farming, Mohammad Rashed Newaz, who is a lawyer, has planted various local and foreign varieties of fruit trees on 15 bighas of land he obtained from his ancestors in Naikhongchhari upazila of Bandarban.
Advocate Newaz has been practising in the Cox's Bazar Judge Court and also cultivating various chemical-free fruits on his lands making an example for others.
Newaz said, he started farming with mixed fruit trees as a hobby. Later, under the general direction of the Upazila Agriculture Office, he developed a mixed fruit garden with his efforts by taking different varieties of fruit seedlings.
In his garden, there are plants of many fruits, including coconut, mango, lemon, lychee, guava, bell, different varieties of jujube, mango, orange, malta, Thai guava etc. After a few years, his garden will start production and he is hoping for good profit from the output.
“It was my dream to make a mixed fruit garden and I did so with the help and advice of the agriculture office. I have been nurturing the garden on a regular basis and also practising law. I will get benefit if the yields are good.” he said, adding that he has plans to make mixed fruit gardens on a much larger scale in the future.
Last year, he sold jujube production in the local market after meeting his personal demand. However, this year, even though flowers appeared in sufficient quantity, the yield was not been as expected, Newaz said, adding that he has suffered a loss of Tk5 lakh due to this but did not give up hope.
His garden has a variety of fruit plants and he employed ten workers. “I want to be a successful entrepreneur. I want to grow more fruits in the future.”, he added.
Meanwhile, Naikhongchhari upazila agriculture officer Enamul Haque said “We are giving advocate Newaz various suggestions for safe crop production. Moreover, the garden has been inspected. Full cooperation from our agriculture office will continue.”