Govt to launch Olive Trees Tsunami project

Islamabad : The federal government will soon launch Olive Tree Tsunami project in which olive plants would be grafted and planted on a land measuring ten million acres across the country.

The working paper prepared by the climate change ministry said the olive trees would be grafted and planted in different areas including Baluchistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa, tribal areas, and Potohar region where olive oil is already locally produced by the farmers. The Potohar region can be developed into an ‘Olive Valley’ because of its topography and local weather.

It said Pakistan has land that is suitable for cultivation of olive trees and it is far more than Spain, which is the largest olive oil producer in the world.

The olive tree is considered as a ‘camel’ among trees as it can store enough water to keep it going through long periods of drought.

The initial surveys showed that there are eight million wild olive bushes in different areas of Pakistan. If these are grafted and transformed into productive olive trees then it would generate a massive economic activity and help improve the socio-economic conditions of the local communities.

Pakistan is not a traditional olive-producing country, however, a wild subspecies of the olive tree known as ‘Olea cuspidate’ grows in different parts of the country.

The details further revealed that the project titled “Fruit, Vegetable and Olive” was launched in 1986 to plant olive trees in Pakistan. The project was funded by the Italian government but the survival rate of only one per cent became a major factor for the failure of this project. The climate of Pakistan is conducive for the cultivation of olive trees as they grow fast where they find clement winter following long hot summer.