ISLAMABAD: The cultivation target of olive plants has been set on over 50,000 acres of land across the country during next three years.
The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council’s (PARC) olive cultivation project aimed at enhancing olive seed production in the country to reduce increasing edible oil import bill and to fulfil the domestic requirements, said an official. Talking to APP, he said that under the “Olive Project”, plantation of olive plants on 10,000 acres has been completed and the total target cultivating olive on 50,000 acres would be achieved by 2019. He said that PARC had also cultivated soybean on over 150 acres of land at National Agriculture Research Council, adding that about 80 tons of soybean seed was produced.
The soybean cultivation experiment has remained successful and average yield of over 500 kg per acre was received and the seed would be sold under public private partnership to local poultry industry, he added.
Moreover, he said that soybean cultivation on commercial scale has also been started and it would help to promote olive and soybean cultivation over unused and barren land.
He said that PARC has also provided training for farmers and conducted workshops for small scale growers and marginal land holders for cultivating oil seeds and earned profit from their lands.
The farmers were also educated and informed about the best international practices of olive and soybean cultivation adding that they was also informed about setting up the locally manufacturing oil extraction plants.
It is worth mentioning here that PARC Board of Governance has also approved its budget for the financial year 2015-16 to promote agriculture research and ensure food security in the country.
The budget included Rs.2629 million non-development funds where as Rs.1357.687 have been approved for development projects.
In addition, the board also approved Rs.228.435 for MoUs projects and Rs211.364 million for Agriculture Linkage Programme (ALP).
