`Pakistani Province of Punjab Announces Plan to Plant 50M Olive Trees - Olive Oil Times
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Pakistani Province of Punjab Announces Plan to Plant 50M Olive Trees

By Ofeoritse Daibo
Jan. 13, 2025 16:52 UTC

The gov­ern­ment of the Pakistani province of Punjab has con­firmed plans to plant 50 mil­lion olive trees on four mil­lion hectares by 2026.

The cul­ti­va­tion efforts will focus on the Chakwal, Attock and Mianwali dis­tricts, known for their favor­able land and cli­mate con­di­tions.

The ini­tia­tive is part of a broader strat­egy to reduce Pakistan’s depen­dence on imported edi­ble oils, improve rural earn­ing power and shift some agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion to a more drought-tol­er­ant crop.

See Also:Olives Bring Sustainable Development to Pakistan

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Pakistan con­sumed 4.41 mil­lion met­ric tons of edi­ble oils in the 2023/24 crop year, of which 3.19 mil­lion tons were imported.

Olive cul­ti­va­tion is increas­ingly seen as a strate­gic crop that can reduce the country’s trade deficit—which hit $5.4 (€5.27) bil­lion in October 2024 — and cre­ate a new source of for­eign income through exports.

Pakistan has 80 mil­lion wild olive trees and 5.6 mil­lion cul­ti­vated olive trees, with 500,000 and 800,000 new trees planted annu­ally.

The coun­try’s olive oil pro­duc­tion is pro­jected to reach 160 and 180 met­ric tons in the 2024/25 crop year, rep­re­sent­ing a 20 per­cent increase from the pre­ced­ing sea­son.

In 2022, the year Pakistan joined the International Olive Council (IOC) as its 19th mem­ber, it suc­cess­fully exported vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil val­ued at $1.9 (€1.8) mil­lion.

“We are work­ing on inter­na­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tions such as European Union cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and Asian cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to be able to export the prod­ucts inter­na­tion­ally,” Muhammad Azeem Tariq, the project man­ager of Loralai Olives, told Olive Oil Times in a December 2024 inter­view.

“This year has been remark­able for the olive indus­try,” he added. ​“We have seen an increase, not only in the fruit­ing but farm­ers’ pas­sion towards olive pro­duc­tion.”

Along with the effort in Punjab, the national gov­ern­ment plans to grow more olive trees in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, espe­cially the Hazara dis­trict and Balochistan.

At the International Olive Oil Symposium held in Madrid last month, Azeem Tariq noted that pri­or­i­tiz­ing olive cul­ti­va­tion in Pakistan is based on the numer­ous advan­tages asso­ci­ated with the crop.

He argued that olive trees are par­tic­u­larly well-adapted to Pakistan’s cli­matic con­di­tions since they require sig­nif­i­cantly less water than tra­di­tional crops such as wheat and rice.

This char­ac­ter­is­tic makes olives an opti­mal choice for a region that fre­quently expe­ri­ences water scarcity. Furthermore, olive cul­ti­va­tion has the poten­tial to enhance soil health and mit­i­gate ero­sion, con­tribut­ing to long-term agri­cul­tural sus­tain­abil­ity.

Separately, olive farm­ing is seen as a strate­gic crop in under­de­vel­oped areas to pro­vide impov­er­ished rural farm­ers with a bet­ter liv­ing and dis­suade them from join­ing ter­ror­ist groups, includ­ing Al-Qaeda, that remain active in the north of the coun­try.

The Pakistani gov­ern­ment intends to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive sup­port to farm­ers inter­ested in olive cul­ti­va­tion.

This sup­port will encom­pass the pro­vi­sion of high-qual­ity saplings, tech­ni­cal assis­tance and train­ing pro­grams designed to ensure effec­tive crop man­age­ment.

Financial incen­tives and sub­si­dies will also be avail­able to encour­age farm­ers to tran­si­tion to olive farm­ing.

The over­ar­ch­ing objec­tive is estab­lish­ing a robust sup­ply chain to facil­i­tate local olive oil pro­duc­tion, bot­tling and mar­ket­ing.

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