Olives, Pakistan’s best bet to cut down edible oil import bill

ISLAMABAD: Growing needs of an increasing population are pushing the country towards food insecurity, which calls for raising agriculture produce on war-footing, especially oilseed crops, and olive is our best bet right now.

Even being an agriculture country Pakistan has to spend millions of dollars on import of food items that can be grown indigenously through proper policies.

Edible oil, a key component of our daily use items, is a glaring example as the country is hardly managing to produce only 32 percent of edible oil to meet domestic consumption and the remaining 68 percent is imported from different countries.

In view of this situation, the government is encouraging cultivation of olives to reduce reliance on the imported edible oil and save precious foreign exchange.

Olive cultivation is gaining momentum worldwide with its production growing by 1.5 percent every year.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), during 2018, the area under olive cultivation was recorded at 10.513 million hectares, showing 36 percent increase as compared to year 2000. By now, Spain is the leading country in terms of olive cultivation, output and oil extraction.

According to agriculture experts, the successful cultivation of olive requires specific ecological conditions ranging from dry weather during summer and the temperature less than 07 °C during winter with low rainfall.

Thus the areas having the temperature from 20-25 °C are most suitable for its cultivation, although the plant could be grown from the desert areas to snow-covered mountains.

The government is also paying special attention to olive cultivation to particularly enhance the income of farmers in arid and semi barren lands.

So far olives have been cultivated on over 27,000 hectares with a target to enhance cultivation area to 70,000 hectares in coming years.

During last year farmers were provided 550,000 olive plants and by 2020-23 olive would be cultivated over 50,000 hectares, whereas 2.3 million plants would also be provided during current olive cultivation campaign.

Experts have identified different areas for olive cultivation on commercial scale and have asked for initiating public-private partnership for the promotion of olive production.

These plants would be cultivated under current autumn olive cultivation drive on the potential areas across the country.

At present, on average, 500,000 to 600,000 olive plants are being cultivated annually.

However, the survey teams have also started feasibility studies to identify more area for coming cultivation drive.

Besides promoting olive, as many as 10 plants producing nurseries have also been established in collaboration with public and private sectors to fulfill the local needs.

From these local nurseries, about one million plants would be obtained during current season and these plants would be 100 percent certified by the Federal Seeds Registration and Certification Authority.

Keeping in view weather conditions, the areas surrounding the Indus River, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad and Pothohar region were considered as the most suitable for olive cultivation.

During current year, farmers in Pothohar region were provided 1.21 million olive plants along with oil extraction facility.

Moreover, a comprehensive mechanism is being devised to exploit true potential of high value crop production in the region.

Secretary Agriculture Department Punjab Asad Rahman Gilani in a recent statement said, to fulfill domestic requirements of edible oil, olive farmers would be provided more facilities.

He called upon the agriculture scientists and experts for expediting the process of introducing new high-yielding verities of crops, besides providing technical assistance to fruit orchards for tapping the potential of fresh fruit production in the region.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) is also striving to enhance olive cultivation through various projects and introducing cost-effective mechanism.

Dr Muhammad Tariq, National Project Director for Olive Cultivation on Commercial Scale, told APP that Pakistan was blessed with different natural resources and a vast area was available for olive cultivation.

Terming the decision as wiser, he said olive cultivation would not only save foreign exchange but also support the rural poor enabling them to contribute in economic stability of the country.

It would provide many entrepreneurial opportunities to young men and women by involving them in value-addition of the commodity and increase livelihood opportunities for them.

Muhammad Aziz, General Manager Al-Noor Zarai Farm Chakwal, said to enhance output of olive oil, private sector was also supplementing government efforts.

He informed that Al-Noor farm, spread on 240 acres, had been allocated for olive cultivation alone.

This area would be further enhanced with the assistance being provided to farmers, Aziz said.

He said currently total plant population stood at 7000 aging from 1-7 years, adding that while four to five years old plants had reached the fruiting stage. “This project is of significant importance that would bring revolution in edible oil production,” Aziz said.

With the gradual shifting to olive cultivation from traditional crops growing, the measures taken to promote its cultivation in Pothohar region of the Punjab and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh, and

Gilgit-Baltistan would start bearing fruit in near future.

Besides, promoting the olive cultivation, special focus is also being paid on oil extraction as Punjab and Balochistan provinces have also installed three plants in different areas to facilitate the local growers.

Meanwhile, private sector is also keen to benefit from the government’s incentives to encourage joint ventures and investing in oil extraction facilities.

The agriculture and economic experts are hoping enhanced local output of olive oil enabling the country to meet local demand of edible oil and earn reasonable foreign exchange.