`India Says it Will Expand Olive Oil Production - Olive Oil Times

India Says it Will Expand Olive Oil Production

By Wendy Logan
Aug. 6, 2015 09:28 UTC

In India, they’re called Jaitun, and on the heels of what Agricultural Minister Prabhu Lal Saini has dubbed encour­ag­ing results” from early yields, the olive crop has begun to draw a brighter spot­light in Rajasthan. As reported ear­lier this sum­mer, a land­mark col­lab­o­ra­tion between India and Israel to bring seven vari­eties of olive trees to the north­ern Indian state has proven promis­ing, and now, India is ready to up the ante.

We have decided to take it to farm­ers’ fields.- Ag. Minister Prabhu Lal Saini

Committing to a larger invest­ment in the crop, the state gov­ern­ment is get­ting behind the effort through a mas­sive increase in the amount of land that will be ded­i­cated to olive tree cul­ti­va­tion and fruit and oil pro­duc­tion. The exist­ing 240 hectares (roughly 600 acres) will be expanded to a whop­ping 5,200 hectares in the com­ing months.

Currently, olive cul­ti­va­tion is being under­taken in state-farm fields…as part of the Indo-Israel project,” said Saini to the Press Trust of India ear­lier this week. We have decided to take (it) to farm­ers’ fields.” Growers are being pro­vided with free plants as well as tech­ni­cal sup­port and plans are under­way to pro­mote both oil-pro­duc­ing vari­eties and table olives.

With a goal of mak­ing Rajasthan the cen­ter for the olive trade in India and put the desert state on the inter­na­tional map for olive oil pro­duc­tion through their estab­lished brand, Raj Olive Oil,” the Indian gov­ern­ment believes the suc­cess of the crop could sig­nif­i­cantly change the agro-econ­omy of the state.

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