By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)The local olive harvest cultivation in the country during the current season is projected to cross 11,000 tons, showing a significant development towards reducing reliance on the imported edible oil as well as to exploit the export potential of this particular agriculture produce.
“The country is expecting to extract about 13,000 tons of extra virgin olive worth millions of dollars that would help to boost the farm income with less investment and use of inputs,” Project Director of Olive Cultivation on Commercial Scale in Pakistan, Dr Muhammad Tariq, disclosed in an interview.
He pointed out that olive has been successfully cultivated over 27,000 hectares of land across the country and it was set to extend its cultivation to over 70,000 hectares to turn the marginal lands into productive for enhancing the income of small scale growers.
Under the olive cultivation project the farmers were provided about 550,000 plants last year and this year over 675,000 more plants would be distributed.
Dr Tariq added that the government intended to provide about 2.2 million plants and bring about 50,000 hectares under olive cultivation by end of 2022-23, adding that if continued with same spirit, the country would be included in the list of potential exports of extra virgin olive oil.
Meanwhile, the provincial governments of Punjab and Balochistan have also installed three units each in different districts, whereas the private sector was also active and had installed its mobile plants in Fasilabad and Chakwal.
In order to facilitate the local growers of Balochistan, five oil processing units have been installed there, besides the farmers were also provided training of value addition of the product and processing.
This year, he said that the government had decided to organize two-day International Olive Conference in Khuzdar, which would be virtually participated by experts from Greece, Italy and Spain, adding that local scientists and experts would also take part in the event.
The conference to be held from October 21 is aimed to encourage olive cultivation in the province which have a brighter scope in back drop of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.
