Bhaluka (Mymensingh) Correspondent: Bhaluka (Mymensingh) Correspondent: When people return home from abroad, they usually bring suitcases filled with various things. Abdul Motaleb brought date seeds. He may not have thought that those seeds would turn his life around one day. On the contrary, he had to face the ridicule of the villagers for planting date seeds upon returning home. Some even called him ‘crazy’.
After more than two decades, that same Motaleb is now known in the area as Date Motaleb. This entrepreneur’s garden in Paragaon village of Bhaluka upazila of Mymensingh now has about 100 trees bearing dates. He claims that the seedlings produced from just a few trees have now spread to different parts of the country. He also claims that he is doing a business of crores of taka annually by selling seedlings and dates.
Abdul Motaleb (54) is the son of the late Nurul Islam of Paragaon village in Habirbari union of the upazila. He migrated to Saudi Arabia about two decades ago to restore his family’s poverty. He took a job in a date garden there for a monthly salary of 10,000 taka. While working in the garden for three years, he learned firsthand about the care, pollination and cultivation of date trees. He brought date seeds with him when he returned home.
After returning home, Motaleb planted the seeds in the land next to his house. In the first phase, 275 seedlings grew, but it was later found that most of the trees were male. As a result, although the trees sprouted, they did not bear dates. Undeterred, he planted the seedlings again. The same experience was experienced in the second phase.
Motaleb said that in the third phase, when two of the few trees bore dates, his long-term efforts were rewarded. He later started producing seedlings from those two trees.
He claims that he has produced about 1,200 seedlings from those two trees so far. Currently, about 100 trees in his garden have borne dates. This year, he has sold about 5 lakh taka of dates. He also claims that he is doing a business of crores of taka in seedlings and dates together every year.
Motaleb said that when people go abroad, they bring suitcases full of things. And I was bringing dates. The people of the country used to laugh and call me crazy.
A tree has a special place in the story of Motaleb’s date garden. According to him, out of the 11 trees grown from seeds, one tree first budded. He preserved the tree separately. Later, he named it ‘Sheikh Siraj’.
Motaleb claims that this is the first Saudi date tree in Bangladesh. He later took up the work of producing seedlings from this tree in his garden.
Motaleb said that he had to fail repeatedly because he could not identify the sex of the tree in the beginning, and said that after about 17 months, the first tree budded. But it did not yield because it was a male bud. Although buds appeared on one tree after another for several years, no dates were obtained because they were male. Later, after the identification of a female tree, new possibilities opened up in his cultivation.
Motaleb said that he is currently using the cutting method to produce seedlings from female trees. He claims that seedlings produced from female trees in this method become female trees. He is also cultivating by adding cuttings to male trees.
Motaleb is using his experience to interest others in date cultivation. He claims that several hundred people have already taken seedlings from him and have planted date gardens in different parts of the country. However, the number or production information of these gardens could not be independently verified.
He has plans to produce seedlings on a larger scale if he receives government support. He wants to increase date cultivation in different parts of the country by distributing seedlings among farmers at low prices.
Motaleb believes that Bangladesh’s weather and excessive rainfall are major obstacles in drying and preserving dates. That is why he is currently mainly selling raw dates.
According to him, it takes about 6 to 7 days to dry the ripe dates after collecting them from the tree. If the weather is not favorable, drying and preservation become difficult. Therefore, he markets a large part of the produced dates in the raw state.
Once upon a time, the villagers laughed at Motaleb’s garden, which he had brought back with date seeds from Saudi Arabia, is now a reflection of his dream. The initiative that started with a few trees has now taken the form of a business of producing seedlings and selling dates.
However, to take date cultivation to a larger scale, improved varieties, scientific care, pollination and conservation technology are needed. This entrepreneur believes that if these facilities are available, date cultivation in Bangladesh can become more commercially viable.
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