by Raheela Nazir
ISLAMABAD, Apr 27 (NNN-XINHUA) – While carefully pruning olive trees at his farm, sprawling over an area of more than 30 acres, in Pakistan’s north-west district of Nowshera, Muhammad Abbas, a 40-year-old local olive grower, sees a promising future for his business.
“Recently, there has been an increasing trend of olive cultivation in Pakistan, considering its high demand, both domestically and internationally,” Abbas told Xinhua, adding, on top of that, the incumbent government has been paying a special attention to enhance olive production in the country, to boost green economy.
“At the moment, I have some 6,000 olive trees and each tree is giving me a yield of 20-25 kg on average, which is huge considering the nature of my land that is not suitable for the production of other crops,” he added.
While expressing desire to plant more trees next year, Abbas said, as the crop is more tolerant to adverse conditions like drought, and needs comparatively less investment, it is giving a high return than other crops.
The country has an ambitious target of planting 50 million olive trees in the coming years, under the umbrella of the incumbent government’s 10 Billion Tree Tsunami programme, for expansion and restoration of the fractured forests across the country and address climate change issues.
Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, encouraged local farmers to adopt the cultivation of olives, to diversify and commercialise their crops.
“Large scale olive cultivation would prove to be one of the best future investments for the country, that can help address major challenges faced by Pakistan, including food security, declining foreign exchange reserves, climate change, and job creation,” Khan said recently, while launching a plantation campaign of olive trees in Nowshera.
To reduce dependency on foreign edible oil and boost exports, the Pakistani government has recently taken exceptional measures, by giving subsidies to local farmers, imparting technical trainings, and providing a large amount of free-of-cost olive saplings.
Pakistan has been spending billions of dollars every year, on the import of edible oil, to meet the growing need of the population. According to government officials, local production of edible oil is only 32 percent of the country’s total requirement.
In a conversation with Xinhua, Muhammad Tariq, national project director for promotion of olive cultivation on commercial scale, at Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, said, the olive plantation project of the government will greatly help improve rural economy of Pakistan.
“It will not only cut the country’s edible oil import bill, but also provide regular income to farmers, holding small lands,” Tariq said, adding, the project will create employment opportunities for locals, especially youth and women, by involving them in the value addition process of olives.
“New varieties of high value crops, including olives, are being introduced by agricultural scientists, to enhance high quality production. Technical assistance, including orchard management, processing and nursery production are being imparted to the farmers,” Tariq said.
Olives are cultivated on over 27,000 hectares of land, and in the coming years, olive saplings will be planted on over 70,000 hectares of land across the country, under the 50 million olive trees project, Gilani said.
“Once fully implemented, the country, which is spending more than three billion U.S. dollars on the import of edible oil every year, will produce surplus to earn valuable foreign exchange,” he said.– NNN-XINHUA
