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The Indian state of Rajasthan is set to launch its own brand of olive oil under the name ​“Raj Olive Oil,” the first Indian olive oil pro­duced within the coun­try.

The brand will be offi­cially unveiled at the Global Rajasthan Agri-tech Meet (GRAM) in Jaipur on Novem­ber 9.
See more: Com­plete Cov­er­age of the Rajasthan Olive Project
Olive oil pro­duced in India has been antic­i­pated ever since a pilot project for olive cul­ti­va­tion first began in 2008 when 112,000 olive saplings from Israel were planted on 182 hectares of gov­ern­ment farms in Rajasthan.

The fol­low­ing year, these saplings were trans­ferred to local farm­ers who also received sub­si­dies to encour­age olive cul­ti­va­tion.

11,574 kg of olive oil have been pro­duced in Rajasthan as a result, with the dis­tricts of Gan­gana­gar, Bikaner, Hanu­man­garh and Nagore pro­duc­ing the most.

A yield of 4,500 liters of the olive oil pro­duced in India will be mar­keted through Rajasthan Olive Cul­ti­va­tion Lim­ited (ROCL), a joint-ven­ture of the state gov­ern­ment, Indi­a’s Finolex Plas­son Indus­tries, and Indo­live Indus­tries of Israel.

ROCL’s man­ag­ing direc­tor, Yogesh Verma, told The Eco­nomic Times that assis­tance was requested from Israel because of the sim­i­lar cli­matic con­di­tions in both regions, and that the plan is to increase cul­ti­va­tion to 5,000 hectares. He also added that olive cul­ti­va­tion offers returns for farm­ers three to four times more than tra­di­tional crops like wheat and pearl mil­let.

India is expe­ri­enc­ing ris­ing demand for olive oil and imports are expected to rise by 20 per­cent. Accord­ing to the ROCL, India cur­rently imports 14,500 tons of olive oil from Spain, Italy and Greece.

Domes­ti­cally-pro­duced olive oil can reduce the need for imports and offer Indian con­sumers a high-qual­ity prod­uct at cheaper mar­ket prices com­pared to imported oils.

• The Eco­nomic Times


• Hindu Busi­ness Line