The Federal Government is going to develop new olive orchards on 30,000 acres land during the next 5 years in KPK in order to make Pakistan’s self-sufficient in production of edible oil.
New olive orchards on 30,000 acres land will soon be developed in Khyber Pakthunkhwa. Project Director, Olive Trees Project in KP Ahmed Syed told the media that work on the mega project was accelerated in KP where new olive orchards on about 30,000 acres land would be raised by 2026 under Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) under the goal to increase edible oil production.
He further said that project contains around 4.02 million olive plants which be planted and grafting in four million wild olive would be achieved. He added that entire KP especially Malakand Division, Peshawar Valley, merged areas of erstwhile FATA and right side of River Indus were most suitable for olive cultivation.
The Project director also said that the country was blessed with varieties of soils, ecological zones and climate conditions where over 4.4 million hectares of land was available for olive plantation and if utilized properly can prove an omen of making the country’s self-sufficient in edible oil.
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Moreover, Pakistan has been spending billions of rupees on imports of edible oil including soybean, palm oil, sunflowers and others related commodities since 1970 and has imported around 3,000 tons olive oil worth Rs1.241 billion during 2017-18.
Ahmed Syed said “Spain was producing about 45 percent of total edible oil from olive cultivation from only 2.6 million hectares, while Pakistan despite having a vast suitable area of 4.4 million hectares of olive farming was importing around 75 percent edible oil for domestic consumption.”
He added by saying that “About 10.41 million olive trees would be planted in the country, including Khyber Pakthunkhwa on commercial basis. The new olive orchards on 75,000 acres government and private lands would be raised in Pakistan by 2026,”.
