Home ›› 06 Jul 2022 ›› Nation
A combined farm of pigeons, goats and fish in Natore has inspired many with its success.
The owners of the farm in Gurudaspur upazila of Natore are Shishir Ahmed, an MBA graduate from Islamic University and his wife Shanta Khatun, another graduate from the same faculty.
The farm makes a profit of over Tk 1 lakh per month and over one hundred employees are currently working at the farm.
The farm presently has 21 improved breeds of goats, 150-200 pairs of domestic and foreign pigeons and two fish ponds on a piece of 18 bigha land.
The correspondent made a visit to the farm and found trucks full of fish being transported to different districts.
The owner has set up an office where his wife helps with the paperwork and running the business. Buyers from different areas of the country come to buy fish, goats and pigeons from the farm.
Shishir Ahmed said he started his business in 2012 after completing his MBA from Bangladesh Islamic University.
He started cultivating different species of fish in 10-12 ponds in his area. At first, he used to sell the fish to local wholesalers. In 2016 he started contacting fish traders in Dhaka and other districts.
He found success in supplying Rui, Katla, and Mrigel fish to different districts including Dhaka. Now he gets orders for about 4-5 trucks of fish per day.
He also breeds and sells improved breeds of goats and pigeons.
Shishir Ahmed said his goat farm has a total of 21 different varieties of goats including six Tota, three Haryana, two Barbaris and seven cross breeds. Goats bear kids twice per year and he sells them to different farms.
He started breeding goats on his farm two years ago and invested Tk 9-10 lakh. He bought the goats from Rajasthan, India and currently makes an annual profit of Tk 5 lakh. Shishir’s pigeon farm initially started as a hobby, however. He used to keep local breeds of pigeons ever since his early teens.
Currently, his farm has 150-200 pairs of different breeds of pigeons. Notable among these species are French Execution, Mondial, Black King Shocking, Lahori, Siraji, Black Spandle Henna, Yellow Henna, Cobar Luck, Danish and Black Danish, Andalisian, Beauty, and Lakka.
He buys pigeons from various countries in Europe including Italy through importers. He said two workers were working around the clock to take care of the pigeons, adding that he had invested Tk 10-15 lakh in the pigeon farm.
The farm makes a profit of Tk 40,000-50,000 per month from selling pigeons. He added that baby pigeons are sold for Tk 40,000-50,000 and older ones for Tk 120,000-150,000. Besides, a pair of Andalusian pigeons are sold for Tk 2 lakh and their offspring for Tk 70,000-80,000.
According to the farmer, his largest venture is the fish farm and he makes a profit of over Tk one lakh excluding all expenses. He sells 8-10 tonnes of fish worth Tk 10 to 20 lakh to different districts including Dhaka, Dinajpur and Khulna in his own five trucks.
Shishir Ahmed said that he wants to expand his farm. He claims that the price of fish abroad is at least three times higher than in our country and added that he wants to export fish abroad.
District Livestock Officer Golam Mostafa said that the young couple’s combined farm is an exemplary venture that has provided employment to hundreds of people in the upazila.
The official expects that Shishir would expand his farm to produce meat from local breeds of goats considering the demand in the country.
“I hope that unemployed youths will follow Shishir’s example in building their own farms and improve the socio-economic condition of the country,” he added.
