Olive Oil Production Becomes Increasingly Viable in Oman

Efforts to diver­sify the Omani econ­omy are bear­ing fruit, accord­ing to offi­cials in the small king­dom on the south­east­ern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

Previously known for its pome­gran­ates, apri­cots and figs, the moun­tain­ous Al Jabal Al Akhdar region quickly became the heart of Omani olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Ten years after the first olive trees were planted in the region, pro­duc­ers in Al Jabal Al Akhdar yielded 10,000 liters of olive oil from 20,000 trees planted on 40 hectares in the 2022/23 crop year.

“This yield, val­ued at around 200,000 Omani Rial (€484,000), marked a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for the region’s olive cul­ti­va­tion,” Abdul Aziz bin Mansour al Shanfari, an offi­cial in the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, told local media.

Oman is an oil-rich Gulf state home to 4.5 mil­lion peo­ple. However, sig­nif­i­cant efforts are under­way to diver­sify its econ­omy, with offi­cials iden­ti­fy­ing olive grow­ing as one way to do so.

Ali Saleh Abdullah Al Forqani, the deputy direc­tor gen­eral of the Royal Gardens and Farm Affairs for Oman, said the kingdom’s push to pro­mote olive oil pro­duc­tion is part of wider plans to pro­mote agri­cul­tural devel­op­ment and diver­sify crop cul­ti­va­tion.

“The cli­mate and ter­rain of Al Jabal Al Akhdar are con­ducive to olive cul­ti­va­tion, espe­cially in areas with favor­able soil con­di­tions and suf­fi­cient water resources,” he told Olive Oil Times. ​“Leveraging these nat­ural advan­tages facil­i­tates the effec­tive use of resources.”

The Omani gov­ern­ment is cur­rently dis­trib­ut­ing thou­sands of free olive tree seedlings to farm­ers, encour­ag­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of olive vari­eties suited to Oman’s cli­mate, and pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal advice to millers.

Currently, the gov­ern­ment is dis­trib­ut­ing 20 vari­eties of table olives and olive oil olives from Spain, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria to deter­mine which ones work best in the country’s cli­mate.

According to Al Forqani, the gov­ern­ment is also work­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor to share sci­en­tific research and prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tions on olive tree cul­ti­va­tion, olive grove main­te­nance and qual­ity assess­ment.

Al Jabal Al Akhdar is a moun­tain­ous region in the north of the coun­try, which Al Forqani said it is ​“char­ac­ter­ized by arid to semi-arid cli­mates, with high tem­per­a­tures and min­i­mal rain­fall dur­ing the sum­mer months.”

While dates, toma­toes, cucum­bers, green chilies, pep­pers, water­mel­ons, sorghum and mel­ons are the most pop­u­lar crops in Oman, the impacts of cli­mate change are push­ing farm­ers toward olives.

“Climate change poses a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to Oman’s agri­cul­tural prac­tices, with cur­rent effects and future pre­dic­tions high­lighted in recent reports,” Al Forqani said. ​“These impacts under­score the impor­tance of under­stand­ing and mit­i­gat­ing the con­se­quences of cli­mate change on agri­cul­tural sus­tain­abil­ity and water resource man­age­ment.”

Despite 10 years of olive cul­ti­va­tion, olive oil remains a new prod­uct for Oman. Most olive oil con­sumed in the coun­try is imported from Spain and its Middle Eastern allies, but Al Forqani sees poten­tial, espe­cially as aware­ness of its health ben­e­fits and culi­nary appli­ca­tions grows.

“As this prod­uct and mar­ket are still rel­a­tively new in Oman, it will require some time to develop,” he said. ​“However, there is a grow­ing inter­est among con­sumers regard­ing the nutri­tional ben­e­fits of authen­tic local prod­ucts, such as olive oil.”

Al Forqani said the Royal Gardens sub­mit­ted Omani extra vir­gin olive oils to sev­eral qual­ity com­pe­ti­tions in Europe, earn­ing a total of 13 awards.

“Such achieve­ments raise aware­ness about the health ben­e­fits and qual­ity of this prod­uct, lead­ing to an increase in the num­ber of farm­ers engag­ing in olive cul­ti­va­tion in recent years, as well as a rise in the num­ber of olive mills and sales over the past five years,” he said.

• Muscat Daily
• Gulf News
• Times of Oman