While the nationwide pandemic drastically changed the lives of students across the world, one undergrad student named Khokon from Kushtia tried to cultivated rock melon during his idle time in lockdown. The bumper yield of rock melon in his field has attracted attention of farmers in Kushtia. Many farmers in Kushtia now want to invest in rock melon cultivation.
After the lockdown started, Student of Kushtia Government College, Nayeem Islam Khokon was thinking about a way to make some earning. Upon asking his expatriate brother in Dubai, he got the idea to cultivate rock melon. After researching about rock melon cultivation from the internet, he took advise from local agricultural office and planted rock melon seeds. He achieved a huge success in his first attempt.
Young agro entrepreneur Nayeem took lease of 33 decimal of land and planted rock melon seed this year.
Being a nutritious fruit, rock melon is still a fairly unknown fruit in the country. Thus this fruit has not become popular in Bangladesh. There are very few information about cultivating rock melon in local agricultural offices.
Farmers across the district are coming everyday to see the success of Nayeem and his rock melon field. Many of them are taking advises from this young entrepreneur about rock melon cultivation.
After visiting the field, correspondent saw that rock melon trees are kind of similar to muskmelon tress. Every tree holds two or three rock melons.
Nayeem upon asking, said that he was spending idle times after his college got closed during lockdown. His brother from Dubai called him and let him knew about rock melon farming. Then he browsed YouTube and collected rock melon seeds from a farm of Bogura after seeking advised from upazila agricultural office.
‘Rock melon is a very nutritious fruit. This is very popular in abroad. Though very few knows about this fruit in the country. Soil condition in the country is ideal for rock melon. It takes 45-50 days to grow rock melon after planting the seeds,’ Nayeem said.
‘It costs me almost 1 lakh taka to cultivate and grow rock melon in 1 bigha of land,’ Nayeem said. This cost will reduce, as this was his first time cultivating a new fruit. He did not used any pesticide. He hopes to get More than 2 lakh taka from the rock melon this year.
Sadekul, a farmer from the area said that he worked in this rock melon field under Nayeem’s supervision. As bumper yield was achieved, he is very hopefull about rock melon cultivation. He in future plans to cultivate rock melon in his field.
Farmers Nazim Uddin said first he thought the idea of Nayeem will not fly. However, after seeing the huge growth, he changed his thought. As this is the first time that rock melon was cultivated there, many still do not know the benefits that the can achieve. He believes many farmers in the region will lean towards rock melon cultivation.
Upazila Assistant Agricultural Officer Saddam Hossain said, “ Modern agricultural technique can bring better result than traditional agro methods. Rock melon cultivation can boost in fertile soils of Kushtia. Young entrepreneur Nayeem took the first step in this sector. Upazila agriculture office is trying to help and advise him to achieve a huge yield.”