Pakistan: Rs642 million investment/5 years in Olive cultivation plan approved
Why does a country better known for cotton and citrus keep pouring money into olives? Because millions of wild olive trees already grow in its hills, and the maths of import substitution is hard to argue with — if the trees can be made to pay.
Every so often a Pakistani government announces a fresh, well-funded plan to plant olives across the country’s dry northern and western hills — nurseries, millions of seedlings, subsidies, training. The specific budgets and agencies change with each announcement; the underlying idea does not. Pakistan spends heavily on imported edible oil, its climate in places genuinely suits the olive, and it already has a huge stock of wild olive trees standing in the hills doing nothing commercial. Turning that into a domestic olive-oil industry is a prize worth chasing. It is also much harder than a groundbreaking ceremony makes it look.
Why olives make sense here
Two facts drive the whole story. First, Pakistan imports a very large share of its edible oil, a heavy and persistent cost to the national accounts; anything grown at home that displaces imports is politically attractive. Second, the country is not starting from bare ground — the hills of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan carry vast numbers of wild olive trees (the Olea found across the region), which can in principle be grafted over to fruiting oil varieties rather than planted from scratch. Add altitude, winter chill and dry summers that the olive likes, and the agronomy is plausible.
Why it is harder than it looks
Planting an olive tree is cheap. Everything after that is the challenge. An olive orchard takes five to eight years to reach a serious crop and longer to mature, so the money goes out for years before oil comes back — a hard sell for a smallholder living season to season. Then comes the part that quietly sinks new olive regions everywhere: milling. Olives must be pressed within a day or two of picking or the oil quality collapses, which means presses have to exist near the groves, run by people who know how to use them. Nurseries and subsidies get the trees in the ground; without mills, agronomists, and a route to market, the fruit has nowhere good to go.
What a realistic path looks like
The countries that have built olive industries from scratch did it slowly and with patience for the whole chain, not just the planting. For Pakistan that means grafting wild stock where it makes sense, choosing varieties suited to the local heat rather than copying Mediterranean favourites blindly, building milling capacity in step with the orchards, and training a generation in pruning, pest control and harvest timing. Done that way, the ambition is sound. Done as a photo-friendly planting drive with no follow-through, it produces a lot of young trees and very little oil.
What to take from it
- Pakistan’s olive push is real and recurring, not a one-off — the strategic logic keeps bringing it back.
- The natural advantage is the country’s existing wild olive, which can be grafted rather than replanted.
- The bottleneck is rarely the trees; it is milling, patience and know-how.
- First meaningful harvests come years after planting, so judge these schemes over a decade, not a season.
Pakistan and olives: common questions
Does Pakistan grow olives?
Yes, and increasingly so. It has long had wild olive trees in its northern and western hills, and successive government programmes have planted and grafted fruiting varieties to build a commercial oil industry.
Where in Pakistan are olives grown?
Mainly the dry hill country of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, with the Potohar plateau also cited. These areas have the altitude, winter chill and dry summers olives prefer.
Why does Pakistan want an olive industry?
To cut its large bill for imported edible oil and to give hill farmers a valuable, drought-tolerant crop. Wild olive already grows there, so the natural fit is good.
How long before olive trees produce?
Generally five to eight years to a serious crop, longer to full maturity. That long wait is one of the main obstacles for smallholders.
What is the main obstacle?
Not planting the trees but everything after: nearby mills to press fruit quickly, trained growers, and a reliable route to market. Without those, orchards struggle to turn into oil.
I have watched more than one country announce that it is about to become an olive producer, and the pattern rarely changes. The planting is the photogenic part; the industry is built or lost at the mill and in the years of patient pruning that no one photographs. Pakistan genuinely has the land and the wild trees for it. Whether it has the follow-through — presses near the groves, agronomists in the field, and buyers willing to wait — is what will actually decide it. Judge these schemes in a decade, not a headline.
Drawn from the well-documented pattern of new-region olive development and Pakistan’s stated import-substitution aims; specific figures vary by programme.