Saudi Arabia, in Al Juf province, near the Iraq-Jordan border, has the largest olive grove in the world, holding a Guinness World Record since 2018, with 20,000,000 olives.
Cultivation in the region began in 2007 and by 2009 over 13,000,000 olive trees had been planted. The Al-Jouf Agricultural Development Company owns 7 730 hectares with 5 000 000 olives. The farm produces 15,000 tonnes of oil.
Al Juf organizes an annual olive festival, which lasts for 2 weeks. It is the largest of its kind in the Arabian Gulf region and dozens of producers present their products.
Saudi Arabia's heir apparent, Mohammed bin Salman Al Sa'ud, aims to make the state self-sufficient in food and increase investment and economic revenues, as well as protect the environment by increasing plant cover, improving the climate and resisting desertification.
Achieving them helps the development of olive cultivation, which sequesters carbon, produces olive oil and possibly different food ingredients thanks to the by-products of the mill. However, there is fear as to whether olive groves can be profitable in the future in the face of a climate crisis.
Cooperation between Al Juf and Hain Universities was signed on research issues related to the olive sector and productivity improvement. 21 research projects are on the table under the agreement, which aims to create an advanced research centre for olive and olive oil.
Olive cultivation in Arab countries is hyper-intensive, with 1,600 trees per hectare - the traditional technique allows only 200. The varieties grown are mainly Spanish, Italian and Greek. Saudi Arabia has recently joined the International Olive Council (IOC), the intergovernmental and international organisation in the olive oil and table olive sector based in Madrid.
