SYLHET: Duck farming has brought fortune to Ejharun Mia of a remote village in Sunamganj district's Tahirpur upazila. The poor man is a lucky one by now through a rising trade of duck eggs.
Ejharun Mia used to serve at a duck farm at village Dutma on haor bank in 1998-1999. His job was to look after the farm. Spending two years there he took loan from relatives to start a farm with 350 ducks, almost all of whom died in months of unknown disease. Debt-ridden Ejharun with wife Rosy Akhtar had to leave the village for Dhaka to join garment jobs. Again the couple returned to the village after 12 years with some savings.
This time he dropped the idea of hatchery and bought 250 ducks for trading in eggs. The couple made a good trade in the first year. He used to buy matured ducks for eggs after weeks or months then sold out the ducks to buy new ones. It got developed day by day. Last year the man earned a profit of over 36 lakh taka. At present he has about 1500 to 2000 ducks and gets over 1600 eggs daily. The wholesale traders buy those regularly for various places.
Some of his employees by now had started hatcheries of their own.
Local Union Parishad member Matiur Rahman said Ejharun Mia is the largest egg trader by now in our area, having over 50 hatcheries. Provided with small loans from banks, all of them could be able to employ many more people, he added.
Once poor Ejharun Mia, now a happy man said I am far better now with my wife and family. But I have to give huge labour. Now I am confident I would be able to supply at least 8,000 eggs a day from 10,000 ducks. At Least 25 to 50 people can be employed there. Some loan facilities could help me do this, he added.
