Olive cultivation in Pakistan


The history of olive cultivation in Pakistan is quite old, but significant progress began in 1999 when agricultural experts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa started experimenting with hybrid soybean, sunflower, and olive cultivation to increase edible oil production.

Hundreds of thousands of olive cuttings and plants were brought from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and planted at Tarnab Farm, Peshawar and Sang Bhatti Farm, Mardan. Subsequently, in 2001, a mega project under the Pakistan Oil Seed Development Bord (PODB) was launched for grafting wild olive trees and planting new ones. This project successfully extended olive cultivation experiments to Punjab and Balochistan, alongside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Unfortunately, in 2010, following the approval of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the federal institution responsible for edible oil production, the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board, was dissolved. As a result, the olive cultivation project was also affected.

The federal olive project was placed under the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, whose experts declared the grafting of wild olives unsuccessful, and work on it remained halted until 2020.

In 2015, the Punjab government launched a major olive cultivation project at the provincial level, designating the Pothwar region as the “Olive Valley.” Agricultural experts at the Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) worked diligently over the next few years to promote olive cultivation, conducting experiments on more than 60 varieties. Thousands of farmers were given hundreds of thousands of plants, while private sector initiatives were encouraged to produce olive saplings locally.

By 2020, when wild olives and their grafting had been largely forgotten, and olive cultivation was limited to a few areas in the country, the majority of the public and experts remained unaware that Pakistan could successfully cultivate olives. Numerous regions in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Kashmir are highly suitable for olive farming.

It was during this time that a viral video by Dr. Faiyaz Alam, General Secretary of the Dua Foundation, brought olives into the national spotlight. The video sparked widespread discussion across the country. Senior journalists like Kamran Khan and Haroon Rashid invited Dr. Faiyaz to their talk shows to discuss the topic, and BBC Urdu published a special report on it. The government took notice, and in 2021, both federal and provincial governments allocated billions of rupees to promote olive cultivation and the grafting of wild olives.

After 2020, olive cultivation has witnessed tremendous growth across the country, with over 6 million plants already planted. The production of olive oil has commenced in the country, and oil is also being extracted from the fruits of wild olive trees.

Due to Dr. Faiyaz Alam’s efforts, the federal government has also included Sindh in the olive cultivation project. Over 100,000 plants have already been planted in the province, with notable progress in the Dadu district. A mega project for olive cultivation has been launched under Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) at the mountainous location of Gorakh Hill.

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