Pakistani Government to develop olive oil production
Pakistan’s olive ambition rests on a quiet biological fact: the hills of Balochistan and the northwest are already covered in wild olives. The national plan is essentially one enormous grafting operation, turning bitter scrub into an oil crop.
When Pakistan talks about becoming an olive-oil country, outsiders picture bare land being planted from scratch. The reality is stranger and more promising: the trees are largely already there. Across Balochistan and the northwest grow vast stands of wild olive, Olea ferruginea, known locally as kahu. They fruit, but the fruit is small, hard and useless for oil. The entire strategy hangs on one horticultural move — grafting fruiting cultivars onto that established wild rootstock.
Why the wild trees matter
A grafted wild olive skips the slowest, riskiest years of an orchard. The root system is already decades old, already adapted to thin mountain soil and long dry spells, already surviving the frosts and droughts that would kill a nursery seedling. Splice a proven cultivar onto that and you can, in principle, get a fruiting orchard far faster and cheaper than planting bare ground — which is why grafting campaigns, not planting campaigns, are the real engine of the plan.
Climate that flatters the olive
Much of upland Pakistan reads, climatically, like the Mediterranean: hot dry summers, cool winters, the winter chill an olive needs to flower. That is genuine natural advantage. The catch is water and infrastructure — young grafts need irrigation to establish, mills have to exist within reach of the groves, and growers need training in pruning and harvest timing. Trees are the easy part; the pressing, storing and selling around them are where these projects usually stall.
The honest outlook
Pakistan will not dethrone Spain, and it does not need to. A realistic prize is import substitution and rural income: replacing some of the edible oil the country buys from abroad, and giving hill farmers a hardy, drought-tolerant crop where little else pays. Judge the project not by breathless targets but by dull, durable signs — grafts that take, mills that open, and a first generation of growers who know when to pick.
| Wild species | Olea ferruginea (syn. cuspidata), local ‘kahu’ |
|---|---|
| Method | Grafting fruiting cultivars onto wild rootstock |
| Main zones | Balochistan uplands; Pothohar plateau, northern Punjab |
| Climate | Mediterranean-type: dry summers, cool winters |
| Chief constraints | Irrigation for young trees, milling and market access |
| Realistic goal | Import substitution and hill-farm income, not export dominance |
What to watch
- Whether grafts survive their first two summers — the true bottleneck.
- Whether mills open near the groves, not hundreds of miles away.
- Whether growers learn harvest timing, the difference between oil and vinegar.
- Progress measured in tonnes milled, not trees announced.
Olive oil in Pakistan: common questions
Does Pakistan grow olives?
Yes — it has huge natural stands of wild olive (Olea ferruginea, or ‘kahu’) across Balochistan and the northwest, plus new commercial plantings on the Pothohar plateau in northern Punjab.
What is the wild olive used for?
Its own fruit is too small and hard for oil, but its tough, drought-hardened root system makes an ideal base onto which fruiting cultivars are grafted — the core of Pakistan’s olive strategy.
Why graft instead of plant new orchards?
Grafting onto decades-old wild trees skips the slow, fragile establishment years and uses roots already adapted to poor soil and drought, giving a fruiting orchard faster and more cheaply.
Can Pakistan compete with Mediterranean producers?
Not in volume, and it need not. The sensible aim is substituting imported cooking oil and giving upland farmers a hardy cash crop, not challenging Spain or Italy on export markets.
What could hold the industry back?
Water for young grafts, a shortage of nearby mills, and growers still learning pruning and harvest timing. The trees are the easy part; the milling and marketing around them are the hard part.
I get sent a lot of national olive plans, and the ones that work never lead with the number of trees. Anybody can plant trees, or in Pakistan’s case graft them by the million. The question I always ask is where the fruit gets pressed, and how fast, because an olive turns to poor oil within a day or two of picking. Show me the mills going up next to the grafts and I will believe the plan. Show me only a planting target and I will wait.
Drawn from the agronomy of wild olive (Olea ferruginea) grafting and upland Pakistani olive development.