UMERKOT: More than eight million hectares of wasteland in Pakistan can be used to grow olive which can be exported to earn foreign exchange and enable the country to become self-sufficient in edible oil production, according to experts at a training programme held here on Wednesday.

They said at the programme on “Olive orchard establishment, nursery raising and value addition” conducted at Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) at Arid Zone Research Centre (AZRC) here that under the federal government’s Public Sector Development Program entitled “Promotion and cultivation of olive on commercial scale in Pakistan–Phase-II” the government would assist farmers in cultivation of olive.

The farmers would have to plant, grow, care and water the plant and in return 77 per cent expenses would be borne by the government and the rest of 33pc by the farmer, they said.

Mohammad Waseem Kalroo, project in-charge of the PSDP olive project’s Sindh component, explained the orientation of the project and prospects of its impact and scope in Sindh.

He compared the potential of marginal lands of the province to Rajasthan region of India, where olive had been adopted successfully.

He said that they would provide technical assistance to farmers for the cultivation of olive and they would have to plant, grow, care and water the plant. 77 per cent expenses would be borne by the government and 33pc by farmers, he said.

The government departments which intended to grow the plant on state land would be provided the plant free of cost. The project had been running in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir since 2010 and now Sindh had been included in its second phase since Oct 27, he said.

Senior research officer at Pakistan Oil Seed Development Board Islamabad, Dr Azmat Ali Awan, spoke on propagation techniques, cultural practices and value addition of olive.

He highlighted statistics of world olive consumption and its scope in Pakistan and said the country had more than eight million hectares area of wasteland which could be used for olive cultivation. They could export olive products to the world in addition to making Pakistan self-sufficient in its edible oil consumption, he said.

Engineer Behai Lal, senior scientific officer at PARC–AZRC, explained drip irrigation system and highlighted the importance of water conservation through modern irrigation practices.

The participants in the training programme included Army personnel from Hyderabad and Chhor cantonments, progressive farmers of Umerkot and Mirpurkhas districts, representatives of different local and international NGOs working on food security, officials of plant protection and agriculture department of Sindh and academia from Sindh Agriculture University, Umerkot campus.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2021