Hazara’s Olive Oil Boom Lays Roadmap for Pakistani Sector

The north­west­ern Pakistani region of Hazara has become a prov­ing ground for the national olive oil sec­tor.

Officials and pro­duc­ers are encour­aged by early results, believ­ing the region has pro­vided a roadmap for the rest of Pakistan and opened the door to large-scale exports.

“Hundreds of farm­ers are attracted to graft­ing olives on a local breed named Kaho,” said Basharat Hussain Shah, the National Tea and High-Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI) senior direc­tor.

“Within two to three years of plant­ing, the trees have started yield­ing, with the yield increas­ing each year,” he added. ​“Over 1,000 hectares of land in Hazara are ded­i­cated to olive trees, and this area is grow­ing annu­ally.”

Sabir Sultan is one of the pio­neers of olive grow­ing in Hazara, plant­ing the first olive trees of the Zaitoon Family Foundation in 2010.

Over the past 14 years, Sultan has cul­ti­vated about 5,000 olive trees via graft, half of which have started pro­duc­ing fruit.

“The cli­mate of Hazara is very suit­able for olive cul­ti­va­tion,” he said. ​“The land space is vast, mak­ing cul­ti­vat­ing large quan­ti­ties of olive plants eas­ier.”

The com­bi­na­tion of land avail­abil­ity and appro­pri­ate olive grow­ing con­di­tions have made Hazara a can­di­date for larger-scale olive farms, which help to lower agro­nomic and har­vest­ing costs.

Additionally, Sultan insisted that the region is already lead­ing the way regard­ing qual­ity.

“An offi­cial analy­sis took place in Pakistan to assess the qual­ity of oil from dif­fer­ent regions, and it was found that Hazara pro­duces the high­est qual­ity of olive oil in all of Pakistan,” he said.

Along with Arbequina and Leccino, Sultan grows two vari­eties bred specif­i­cally for Hazara’s cli­mate and soil con­di­tions: BARI Zaitoon‑1 and BARI Zaitoon‑2.

“Given the fer­til­ity and suit­abil­ity of the land, if olive cul­ti­va­tion is done effi­ciently, we will not only be able to stop the import of olive goods but also become capa­ble of export­ing it glob­ally,” Sultan said.

“The increase in olive cul­ti­va­tion can be extremely ben­e­fi­cial for Pakistan,” he added. ​“It can give an immense boost to the econ­omy by reduc­ing olive oil imports, which, along with tea, is one of Pakistan’s biggest imports.”

While Hussain said gov­ern­ment sup­port would be nec­es­sary for olive cul­ti­va­tion to spread and ulti­mately suc­ceed in the South Asian coun­try, he added that ​“the oppor­tu­ni­ties are lim­it­less.”

The Hazara region, located in the wider Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, serves as a micro­cosm for the wider Pakistani indus­try. Hussain believes many of Hazara’s oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges are mir­rored nation­wide.

“Pakistan’s cli­mate and soil con­di­tions are suit­able for olive cul­ti­va­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the north­west regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab,” he said. ​“The coun­try has made sig­nif­i­cant progress in olive farm­ing, with many farm­ers adopt­ing mod­ern cul­ti­va­tion prac­tices and irri­ga­tion sys­tems.”

Despite this progress, Hussain warned that sev­eral obsta­cles impede its full poten­tial.

“Pakistan’s olive pro­duc­tion still lags behind global stan­dards in sev­eral key areas,” he said. ​“The coun­try’s aver­age yield per hectare is sig­nif­i­cantly lower than major olive-pro­duc­ing nations such as Spain, Italy and Greece.”

“Additionally, the qual­ity of Pakistani olive oil often does not meet inter­na­tional stan­dards due to inad­e­quate pro­cess­ing and stor­age facil­i­ties,” Hussain added. ​“Furthermore, Pakistan’s olive indus­try pri­mar­ily focuses on a few pop­u­lar vari­eties, while inter­na­tional mar­kets demand a broader range of cul­ti­vars.”

“To address these issues and reach the expected lev­els, Pakistan must invest in research and devel­op­ment to enhance yields and qual­ity, improve farmer capac­ity build­ing and train­ing pro­grams, develop mod­ern pro­cess­ing and stor­age infra­struc­ture, explore new mar­kets and export oppor­tu­ni­ties and encour­age the adop­tion of sus­tain­able and pre­ci­sion farm­ing prac­tices,” he con­tin­ued.

Several ini­tia­tives are under­way to address these prob­lems, includ­ing a project to pro­mote com­mer­cial olive cul­ti­va­tion, pri­mar­ily funded and sup­ported by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

“This ambi­tious project aims to plant olives on 75,000 acres (30,000 hectares) nation­wide to achieve self-suf­fi­ciency in olive oil pro­duc­tion,” he said. ​“Additionally, the gov­ern­ment is pro­vid­ing a 67 per­cent sub­sidy, with a 33 per­cent farmer share, for pur­chas­ing new olive saplings and assist­ing farm­ers with installing drip irri­ga­tion sys­tems for olive orchards.”

Hussain applauded the work of the Center of Excellence for Olive Research and Training (Cefort), BARI Chakwal and ARI Tarnab to advise local olive grow­ers and millers.

“Furthermore, the ini­tia­tive includes graft­ing over to three mil­lion wild olive trees and train­ing approx­i­mately 2,800 farm­ers and olive stake­hold­ers annu­ally,” he said.

Hazara has been at the heart of these efforts.

“The gov­ern­ment is link­ing farm­ers with pri­vate sec­tor ven­dors for pro­cess­ing, value addi­tion, mar­ket­ing and brand­ing of olive prod­ucts,” said Saeed Ur Rahman, a Hazara-based olive spe­cial­ist with the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC). ​“The estab­lish­ment of pro­cess­ing units is also under­way, with the poten­tial to gen­er­ate employ­ment.”

“In Hazara and other regions, five mil­lion wild olive trees are being grafted into pro­duc­tive fruit-bear­ing trees,” he added.

Hussain said con­struct­ing a 200-kilo­gram-per-hour mill in Hazara has helped increase pro­duc­tion and qual­ity; four more mills have been built across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The yield from 48.5 kilo­grams of olive fruits amounts to an impres­sive 7.5 liters of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” Hussain said.

“Olive oil pro­duc­tion in Hazara has risen from 90 kilo­grams in 2019 to over two tons in 2022 and 2023, pro­vid­ing sub­stan­tial finan­cial ben­e­fits to farm­ers,” he added.

According to Saeed, Pakistan pro­duced 86 tons of olive oil in the 2022/23 crop year, most of which was vir­gin and extra vir­gin.

“The coun­try has around seven mil­lion olive trees planted on 25,000 hectares, with the poten­tial pro­duc­tion of these already-planted groves expected to reach 1,400 tons annu­ally,” he said. ​“By 2027, pro­duc­tion is pro­jected to exceed 10,000 tons annu­ally.”

“In the fis­cal year 2022/23, approx­i­mately 110 tons of olive oil were pro­duced, and 40 tons of fruit were value-added, gen­er­at­ing eco­nomic activ­ity worth 300 mil­lion Pakistani rupees (€990,000),” Saeed added. ​“This devel­op­ment has resulted in job cre­ation in resource-poor rural areas, high­light­ing the sig­nif­i­cant impact of olive cul­ti­va­tion on the local econ­omy.”

Hazara now sig­nif­i­cantly con­tributes to Pakistan’s over­all olive pro­duc­tion.

“The region holds sub­stan­tial poten­tial for boost­ing Pakistan’s over­all olive pro­duc­tion, with hun­dreds of thou­sands of Kaho trees (wild olives) dri­ving eco­nomic and agri­cul­tural pros­per­ity,” Hussain said.

As a result of its efforts to expand pro­duc­tion, Pakistani offi­cials believe the coun­try will soon be self-suf­fi­cient and may even have the capac­ity to export olive oil.

“Pakistan is on its way to becom­ing a sig­nif­i­cant exporter of extra vir­gin olive oil in the future,” Hussain said. ​“In 2022, the coun­try exported over $1.9 (€1.8) mil­lion worth of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil to seven coun­tries, with most of the exports going to Mozambique and Canada.”

“As part of its strate­gic objec­tive to reduce the trade deficit, Pakistan is actively pro­mot­ing extra vir­gin olive oil exports,” he added. ​“Some Pakistani com­pa­nies are already export­ing to global mar­kets, includ­ing China and the United States.”