Irandaily | No. 3870 | Domestic Economy

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Modern Olive Farming Bears Fruit

Domestic Economy Desk

Iran’s exemplary olive producer has managed to produce 27 tons of olive seeds per hectare, which has made Iran the most successful producer of olive in the world.
This was made by Jahangir Arab who is in charge of Touba plan.
Touba is a national plan that started in 2000 to increase the production of dried fruits and olive in the country.
“This by itself displays that our research findings, which we encourage farmers to make use of them in their production activities, are completely scientific,” Arab said, the Persian daily ‘Iran’ reported on its Wednesday issue.
Recently some critics have raised doubts about Touba plan and claimed it has not been implemented in a realistic manner.
Arab rejected all criticisms and said quantitative and qualitative expansion of olive in the country has taken place parallel to each other and based on scientific principles.

Touba Plan
He said Touba Plan is different from Olive Plan.
“Olive Plan started in 1993 and Touba Plan was implemented in 2000. In fact, these two plans are not related to each other. In the Olive Plan it was expected that with the expansion of olive gardens healthy edible oil can be extracted from olive,” he noted.
In the Touba Plan the target was not reaching self-sufficiency in producing edible oil. Fundamentally speaking, in the Touba Plan it was expected that more dried fruits and olive be produced upon identifying suitable horticultural facilities, which is a comparative advantage for the country, Arab added.
Expert examinations show that the violations that took place in the Touba Plan were below one percent and it seems that this minor violation has led to raising doubts about moves made in these two plans,” he stated.
Commenting on differences between lands ceded for planting olive in Touba Plan and Olive Plan, he said, “Only 10 percent of lands ceded to farmers within the framework of Touba Plan was for olive. … In the Touba Plan the applicant himself should have himself introduced the land and obtain the water permit. However, at present, Agricultural Jihad Ministry has identified suitable lands (for planting olive), obtained the water permit and offered low-profit banking facilities with 10-year installations.”

Scientific Studiess
Arab said olive is among very few products that are planted in a fully scientific manner.
“In order to identify figures for olive production in compliance with climatic conditions of each region in 26 provinces of the country, new gardens have been constructed,” he said.
“However, olives planted in some gardens have not produced favorable economic results. Based on studies, this is rooted in miscalculation of figures for the amount of olive production, mismanagement of the gardens in terms of various factors such as irrigation and confronting horticultural blight. These gardens constitute about eight percent of the total olive gardens of the country,” elaborated the official.
Ministry of Agricultural Jihad is prepared to render the needed technical and scientific support to the owners of olive gardens,’ he noted.
He recalled that the area under cultivation of olive has reached 130,000 hectares from 3,500 hectares since 1993.
He went on to say that the global average is 1,800 kilograms of olive produced in each hectare. This is while in Iran this figure stands at 2,000 kg.
“This shows that what the world has accomplished in 130 years for production of olive per unit area, we have achieved in 15 years.
He underlined that in the past five years Agricultural Jihad Ministry has adopted moves so that results of scientific studies and research be made available to olive farmers in a practical manner, which by itself facilitates scientific and technical expansion of olive production.

India to Settle Payment Row

A delegation from the Indian oil and economy sector is scheduled to visit Iran on January 14 to explore ways to settle currency payment issues in the two countries’ oil deals.
India expects the dispute to be settled as early as next week, ending a deadlock that has threatened to stall supplies from the Middle Eastern nation.
India’s Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan said on Wednesday that he is “absolutely confident” that the row will be settled. Speaking to Reuters, the officials of the Indian oil ministry said that there will be no stoppage of crude oil supplies from Iran.
The two countries asre working to sort out the dispute that could block imports of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and New Delhi is walking a fine line in balancing its energy needs and global diplomatic interests.
“National Iranian Oil Company is extremely collaborative with us on finding a solution,” Sundareshan said. “We are hopeful that by Monday, Tuesday a solution will be found.”
The two nations have not yet been able to find a solution on how New Delhi should pay for oil imports from Iran after India’s central bank said last month that payments to the Middle East country could no longer be settled using a long-standing clearing house system run by regional central banks.
Indian oil firms last month raised petrol prices by 5.6 percent, but increasing diesel prices could have a broader inflationary impact as farmers and manufacturers pass their higher costs along to consumers.
Supply disruptions and extreme cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere have pushed oil prices to the highest in more than two years.
Late in December, Iran had sent a central bank delegation to Mumbai for talks and the Iranian deputy oil minister, Ahmad Khaledi, said at the time that the two sides found a solution by changing the currency of payment.
The problem arose when the Indian Central Bank said import payments to Iran would have to be settled outside the existing Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism.
Under the ACU mechanism, every two months imports by the nine member-nations are settled by every member paying for its import surplus.

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