*Pakistan’s olive trees soar from 500,000 to nearly 7 million*

 *Pakistan’s olive trees soar from 500,000 to nearly 7 million*

Prof waqar Hussain 

 Pakistan’s olive plantations have grown from about 500,000 trees in
2016 to nearly seven million today, a fourteenfold rise as the country
seeks to cut a $4 billion edible oil import bill.

The groves now cover some 60,000 acres across Punjab, Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh. Officials plan another 15,000
acres in three years under the new National Olive Value Chain Policy.

The industry is still young. Only about one-fifth of the trees are
fruit-bearing. Even so, officials say olive oil imports have fallen
from 400,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes, and the related bill from $14
million to about $9 million in FY 2024–25.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called even a $400 million saving “a
monumental service.” Pakistan now has a seat at the International
Olive Council, more than 50 extraction units and nurseries able to
produce millions of saplings a year. With an estimated 10 million
acres suitable for olives, the test ahead is not planting alone, but
turning young orchards into oil, jobs and exports.