STAFF REPORT IBD: The Project “Promotion of Olive Cultivation for Economics Development and Poverty Alleviation” of PARC and National Institute for Genomics and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB) have signed an agreement here to identify the unknown olive plants available in Pakistan.
According to agreement, both the parties will establish research linkages for the project titled, “Rapid Identification of Olive Cultivars using DNA Markers”. NIGAB is being outsourced for this task through the Olive Promotional Project. The total cost of the project is Rs 2 million for variety identification of 2000 olive plants through DNA finger printing.
It was told on the occasion that olive promotion project has five components i.e. four provincial units each at KPK, Balochistan, FATA and Punjab and one Federal Project Management Unit (FPMU) at the PARC headquarters. The project is being operated through PARC with a strong coordination system with provinces, said an official of the PARC.
The whole project will be completed in a period of 3 months while the plant sampling for DNA extraction will be done from the olive orchards in KPK, Balochistan and FATA.