LAHORE - Over 5 million olive saplings’ plantation has been completed across the country and the government is intending to organise around 47 programmes to impart training to about 2,800 farmers and olive stakeholders, the official sources at Punjab Agriculture Department told APP.
They said that Pakistan had a large area of land which was suitable for growing olive trees, and it had been producing olive oil since 2010 with the help of countries such as Spain and Italy. Currently, the country was producing around 1,500 tons of olive oil and 830 tons of table olives per year, all of which were consumed domestically, he added. Olive Project Manager Khaity Technologies Pakistan Azeem Tariq told APP that with the cooperation of all stakeholders, the federal government had launched a massive drive to complete plantation process of over 1.2 million olive plants, which had been started since the last spring season, and was continuing across the country.
The drive would help strengthen efforts to produce edible oil to meet the needs for domestic consumption, he added while replying to a query.
Barani Agriculture Research Institute’s senior agricultural scientist and farm manager Dr Azhar said that the government had devised a five-year plan to turn the Potohar region into an ‘Olive Valley’.
