SANA’A, Oct.04 ( Saba)- Nowadays, Yemen expands growing olive trees across its cold areas to make it the fifth strategic crop in the country besides, coffee, honey, palms and mango.
“The ministry has started growing olive trees during since end of 1970s and the beginning of 1980s,” said Manager of Horticulture Department at the ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Hamid al-Bishari.
He added that the ministry plans to expand the plant to replace Qat tree with olive so that qat farmer will save great quantities of water used for irrigating qat tree.
“Olive tree gives you every thing without taking anything,” stated al-Bishari.
He made it clear that the tree can endure the drought and only needs three times of irrigation along the year and then you can leave it to rain water.
Suitable land for growing olive tree
According to al-Bishari, Yemeni land is suitable to grow olive tree because of climate change the country enjoys. “Olive tree needs a temperature lesser than 10 degree centigrade,” he said.
Agriculture experts affirmed also that Yemen’s climate is suitable to grow olive trees because the country’s climate resembles of those countries overlooking the Mediterranean region, where the plant is widespread there. “Yemen is a good place to grow the blessed plant (olive tree) and I saw the country cultivating the plant five years ago,” said Gibril Mousa, Sudani agricultural expert working for a Yemeni investor.
Yemen grows 800,000 olive trees
According to al-Bishari, Yemen has yet grown more 800,000 trees imported from Syria, Jordan and the Arab Center for Studies of Arid Zones Dry Lands (ACSAD).
He indicated that these trees have been planted in northern and central heights in the Capital Sana’a and governorates of Sana’a, Amran, Mahweet, Sa’ada, Dhamar, Ebb, al-Beidha’a and Taiz.
Olives sustain the country’s economy
Economists say that olives can sustain Yemen’s economy. When the plant is spread across the country, Yemen can save a lot of money it spends in importing olive fruits and oil from abroad.
According to al- Bishari, olive tree can produce 60 kilograms of fruits, in best cases. Each kilo grams can be sold for YR 900 and one kilo grams of oil is sold for YR 1500.
Unlike qat tree, which consumes great quantities of water, olive tree depends on rain water and can endure drought. This helps in preserving ground water.
Program for olive tree proliferation
The ministry has expanded program to proliferating olive trees, said al-Bishari. The program is funded by the Fund of Promoting Agricultural and Fish Production. The program works on having greenhouses to proliferating olive locally. The ministry also built a center for olive in Qohom arboretum in Sana’a.
He also said there are also three arboretums in Sana’a, Dhamar and Mahweet.
Green fence around Sana’a
According to al-Bishari, there is a plan to make a green fence of olive trees around the Capital Sana’a.
Squeezing olive fruits
The Manager of Horticulture Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Hamid al-Bishari said the ministry made tender announcement to buy a number of squeezers to extract olive oil. These squeezers will be distributed on the areas growing the plant to enable farmers to benefit from it and then encouraging others to grow the plant.
Problems facing expand cultivating the tree
Experts and officials say that expand in cultivating olive tree still facing problems mainly represented in dealing with olive, taking car of the fruits and extracting the oil.
Al-Bishari also talked about shortage of financial support the ministry needs to expand growing the plant. He stated that the government has reduced the budget of the whole project of the five strategic corps from YR 7 million to only 2 million.
He even says his ministry has not enough budgets to conduct field’s visits across the governorates to sponsor the process of cultivating olive trees.
Profits of olives
Olive fruits contain many vitamins and components which are important for building human body. 100 grams of olive can produce nearly 244 calories. The fruit also has high nutritional value because it contains high percentage of healthy oil. Furthermore, the fruit also sustain the appetite.
Scientific studies indicate that leafs of olive tree can be used for the treatment of several mouth diseases and swellings in the throat. The nucleus of the fruit can be used for the treatment of asthma and coughing diseases.
The oil extracted from olive tree can be used as treatment of nerves and for keeping blood pressure low. The oil also is used for curing chest and abdomen pains, especially for children.
The origin of the tree
It is believed that olive tree originated in the Mediterranean area somewhere in Jordan, Palestine, Syria or Lebanon sometime around 2000 years ago. It spread from these countries to Spain, southern Africa, Australia, Japan and China.
Over 750 million olive trees are cultivated worldwide, 95 percent of which are in the Mediterranean region. Most global production comes from Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
According to al-Bishari the origin of the tree is found in Yemen for thousands of years. It is known as (Otom) the name of wild origin of the tree. The kind of olive tree was found in Otomah district in Dhamar governorate.
