ISLAMABAD: The olive tree plantation has been completed over 3,166 acres of land in Potohar region of Punjab province to reduce dependence on oil imports and bring the marginal agriculture land under cultivation to alleviate poverty from the country.

As many as 428,000 olive saplings have been planted under the five year (2015-20) Olive Valley Project, said head of olive project in Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) Chakwal, Dr Ahmad Tariq.

Talking to APP here on Monday he said that under the project, as much as 15,000 acres of land would be brought under the olive cultivation by planting about 2 million olive saplings.

The main purpose of the project is to enhance the olive oil production by bringing the waste and marginal land under its cultivation, he added.

Reducing the reliance on imported olive oil to fulfill the domestic consumption as well as to encourage the local industry was the other purpose of the project, he added.

He informed that government of Punjab, in collaboration with the international development partners and donor agencies, had initiated a 5 years 'olive valley project', in order to enhance the olive oil production in the country.

He said the Potohar Region was declared olive valley and olive plantation was started in 6 districts including Rawalpindi, Jehlum, Chakwal, Khoshab and Attock.

Dr. Ahmad Tariq said that government was providing free of cost olive plants to growers, besides 60 percent subsidy on the installation of drip-irrigation and 70 percent subsidy on the water resource development.

In order to facilitate the olive growers, an extra virgin olive extraction plant has been installed to produce world class olive oil to maximize the profit, he added.

The plant has the capacity of 500 kg per hour oil extraction and it was expected to extract about 10 tons of the olive during the current season starting from the third week of current month.

During last year, he said that about 4 tons olive was extracted as the plant has capacity of extracting 50 kg per hour, he added.

He said that under the project, rural women were trained on producing by-products of olive like olive jam, pickle and oil to promote the industry.

It may be recalled here that country spent US$ 1.748 billion on the import of about 2,409,220 metric tons olive oil in 11 months of last financial year.