LARUT: Who would have thought that after three years of planting soursop, an ex-soldier can now set his dream to become the tropical fruit millionaire in the country.
Ismail Mahmod, 61, who now works on four hectares of land in Bukit Kulim, Jalan Ijok-Sumpitan near here, planted 2,000 soursop trees, involving a total investment of RM14,000.
The father of four has also planned to grow another 5,000 soursop trees, earning RM50,000 a month in estimated profit.
Refusing to disclose his current monthly profit, Ismail nevertheless admitted to have reaped a windfall from 10 per cent of his crop that had started to bear fruit.
“There are three types of soursop namely sour, sweet-sour and sweet. I am planting the sweet sour soursop type,” he told Bernama recently.
According to Ismail, the current price for the fruit was between RM16 and RM25 per kg and the demand for soursop was high, as it was believed could be used to treat cancer.
“Every week I send 150kg of soursop pulp to Penang and some customers will also come here by themselves to buy the fruit,” he said.
Elaborating, Ismail, who joined the Malaysian Armed Forces in 1972 and left the service in 1993, said each soursop tree would take two years to bear fruit after planting and produce fruit two to three times a year.
Ismail, who is assisted by his wife Norhayati Md. Rashid, 53, said he also has plans to produce tea made from soursop leaves soon. --BERNAMA