In 2006, Vasundhara Raje and Narendra Modi accompanied a Central government delegation to Israel. Both came back impressed by the progress made by the farm sector in a country half of which is desert. They were especially enamoured by the flourishing olive cultivation in Israel.

While Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister, came back and asked an institute in the State to take up research on possible cultivation of olives, his Rajasthan counterpart had a different plan. Raje set up Rajasthan Olive Cultivation Limited, a three-way partnership firm between the State, India’s Finolex Plasson Industries and the Israel-based Indolive Limited.

Ten years later, the fruits of that initiative will be seen in the upcoming Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet, or GRAM, in November. Raje will unveil products made of olives grown in Rajasthan and marketed under its own brand, Raj Olive.

Government officials also revealed that a memorandum of understanding will be signed with a ‘private player’ to market olive oil extracted in the Bikaner-based refinery, the only one of its kind in the country. Apart from oil, olive green tea under the Raj Olive brand will be showcased.

Leading the way “Rajasthan is leading the olive cultivation in the country. While the government cultivates olive on about 180 hectares, another 400 hectares of jaitun cultivation is being done by farmers,” said Prabhu Lal Saini, Minister for Agriculture. Since 2003, the State has processed over 11,500 litres of olive oil in Bikaner, the olive cultivation hub.

Over 50,000 farmers from the state will attend the three-day GRAM event, which will also see delegates from Australia, Serbia and the US, among others.

“Almost 70 per cent of the State’s population is involved in agriculture. But the returns are not good enough. GRAM will showcase initiatives, such as the olive one, to improve farm income,” said Neelkamal Darbari, Principal Secretary, Agriculture & Horticulture Department.

At present, India imports 14,000 tonnes of olive every year. “We would need olive to be cultivated over 35,000 hectares to meet this demand,” said Yogesh Kumar Verma, Chief Operating Officer, Rajasthan Olive Cultivation Limited.

Apart from olive, the State is also aggressively promoting cultivation of date palms. Both olive and date palms thrive in the climatic conditions that prevail in Rajasthan, known for its long, dry summers and bountiful sunshine that could otherwise be detrimental for ‘mainstream’ crops.

Between 2008 and 2011 Rajasthan imported more than a lakh of date saplings from the UAE and the UK, helping spread the cultivation to more than 800 hectares in the State. As with olives, farmers growing date palms get 75 per cent subsidy for buying the saplings.

GRAM will showcase different products made from dates, including wine, pickle and concentrate. “Till now, the farmers were not getting good prices as the State didn’t have a processing unit. Not any more. We will announce an MoU during GRAM that will entail an investment of ₹150 crore to set up a processing unit,” said Saini.

The writer was in Rajasthan recently, at the invitation of the Government of Rajasthan

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