YEMEN ADOPTS OLIVES AS FIFTH STRATEGIC CROP

By Dirhem Assufiani and Mahmoud Asssamiee

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.