Vision Creates Value: Harvesting Hope: Avocado Tree Plantation

Sunday, 16 August 2020

Harvesting Hope: Avocado Tree Plantation

~ Shafiul Islam

[Dedicated to Bibi Russell for weaving global social fabric with empathy and harvesting hope in humanity.]

With a deep driving desire for learning, I enjoy creating value-added process-product-technology and sustainable solutions for my clients in our global village. When I travel, I usually choose the 'round the world air-ticket' with a number of stopovers to meet and greet my old friends on the way. In 2016, I took a break in London, UK to meet the Dr Bilquis Banu and Mozammel Haque family. They love plants and enjoy nurturing a small garden in their backyard. When we left England for Canada in 1998, we gifted our plants to Dr Banu's family. It is always rewarding and refreshing to see our plants on the way to my global journey to serve my clients.

When I travel, I usually carry avocado seeds and souvenirs for my plant-lover friends. This time, Dr Banu gave me a bag of avocados. We enjoyed the fruits with friends and planted avocado trees at my client's factory premises in Gazipur, Bangladesh. Beyond my professional project work, I initiated the avocado seed germination and plantation project. Salma Akhter, Associate Editor, Agriculture Section, Biggani.org advised and guided us how to proceed. Attached are the pictures of Avocado seed germination, plantation and pruning process within timeline. In four years, with only cow manure, the avocado trees grew ~20' tall, pruned at ~10'. Thank you Salma for your advice and sending us the video how to prune avocado trees.

Why avocados? Avocados are one of the world's healthiest foods. All people on our planet have the right to the healthiest fruits of our planet. Bangladeshi weather seems to be favorable for growing avocados and other superfoods with enormous health benefits. A healthy society emerges from healthy eating habits. Imagine those who drive our economic engine have the equal access to superfoods: avocados, apples, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, gooseberries, kale, celery, herbs, nuts, .... Let's learn and grow together to strive for cultivating continuous learning culture to unleash a healthy society!

During the Corona crisis, my client reached out to me again and sent me the pictures of the avocado trees that we planted during installing and commissioning their new quality test and research laboratory. Hopefully, someday all our workforce will enjoy the fruits. This is a little example of how we can give to our community and take care of the bottom-line workforce of our economic engine. As a friend of the environment, I planted many trees in Asia, Europe and North America to cut down global pollution and save our planet. We all can make a difference! I appreciate the opportunity to build a better tomorrow. Many thanks to my friends who helped me to strive for weaving excellence in our visionary journey.

Can we weave our global social fabric with empathy? If so, we foresee more peace and harmony in our global village! Do we have the courage to change our mindset and harvest hope in humanity to change our world in a profound way?