ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has an ideal environment for olive cultivation and bringing more area under cultivation can help the country cut dependency on oil imports and shore up the foreign exchange reserves. Currently, the import bill eats up a sizable chunk of the hard-earned reserves.
Zubair Ikram, Scientific Officer at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), said, “Huge efforts are being made for olive cultivation in Pakistan. If we continue to work like this, in the coming years we can become self-sufficient in olive oil production. This will help us cut our import bill and increase the foreign exchange reserves.”
“In Pakistan, research on olive cultivation began in mid-1980s, but no one paid much attention to this industry until the past five years. During this period, its output has been pretty good. About 40,000 hectares with more than 40 million plants are under olive cultivation in Pakistan,” Zubair said. “We are cultivating olives all over the country, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Potohar region. Potohar region has been declared as the olive valley, which will boost olive production and help save millions of dollars spent on importing oil. It is also grown in Balochistan, including the areas of Zhob, Khuzdar, Quetta, DG khan, and Rakhni. This year, we are doing the trials in Sindh at the official level,” he added. “ Pakistan became the 64th largest pure olive oil importer in the world in 2020, bringing in $5.81M worth of oil. Pure olive oil was Pakistan’s 543rd most-imported item that year. Spain ($4.21M), Turkey ($710K), Tunisia ($431K), Italy ($274K), and the United Arab Emirates ($140K) are the main countries from which Pakistan buys pure olive oil”. –INP
