ISLAMABAD, Feb 8 (APP): Over 1.2 million olive plants will be planted during the current spring tree plantation campaign across the country to strengthen the national efforts to enhance the output of domestic edible oil for reducing the reliance on the imported commodity as well as to save much-needed foreign exchange.
In this regard, the olive plantation would be carried out over 8,900 acres across the country, besides conducting a campaign on wild olive grafting across the four provinces including Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir to attain oil for local consumption, said Dr. Hassan Tariq, National Project Director Olive Cultivation Program.
Talking to APP here on Wednesday, he said that so far olive plantation had been completed over 40,400 acres, and about 8,900 acres of land would be brought under the olive plantation during the current spring plantation campaign, which will help to expand the area under olive production.
Meanwhile, the government in collaboration with other stakeholders and provincial governments would graft over 2 million wild olive trees, he said adding that wild olive trees standing over millions of acres were an untapped potential, which would be brought under olive production.
The government is also intended to organize about 47 training programs to train about 2,800 farmers, and olive stakeholders, on orchard management value addition and capacity building to enhance the local output of olive oil, he added.
Meanwhile, a national olive reference lab was also established for quality testing to ensure the safety and quality of the locally produced products including olive oil and other value-added products that would help to ensure a proper rate of return to growers.
Dr. Tariq further informed that another regional lab would also be established during the current year, adding that a national conference would also be organized during the next month, which would be attended by the growers, experts, academia, and industrialists.
It may be recalled here that domestic olive oil production during the last season was estimated at 70 million tons as compared to the output of over 100 tons of the corresponding period of last year, whereas the availability of olive fruit for value-added products was recorded at over 100 tons.
During the period under review, the local output of olive oil reduce by 30 percent as it was badly influenced due to climate change, rising temperatures during the flowering stage, and torrential rains, the local output remained below last year’s production.
However, the government in collaboration with the Italian government embarked upon a program to train olive farmers in the country to revive and develop local production of oil and reduce the reliance on the costly imported commodity.
The government was also working on the promotion of olive farming and prepared a program to convert wild olives into productive olive plants to increase the farm income of farmers in marginalized areas of the country.
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