New kind of "oil" in Texas

You say “Texas” and the first thing that comes to mind is Oil. Yes, and all that glitz and bling which comes with the oil money, just like in the Gulf. But for the past few months, the oil wells have dried and are just sitting around, looking ugly like a sore, putrefying sore thumb. With price of crude oil crashing, the “oil farmers” of Texas seem to have found a new kind of oil – olive oil.

Yes, some 70 farmers across the state have planted some 5 lakh tress, up from 80,000 trees in 2008 and all are hoping to make some moolah from a growing appetite of Americans for olive oil. There is even a legal body governing these farmers - Texas Olive Oil Council and it expects some 20 lakh tress to be planted before 2015 comes to an end.

Texas is not a conventional olive growing country and some 20 years ago there was not even a single olive tree to truly speak of. It was only in the 90s that small plantations came up. Today, it has become a new source of oil money for some farmers but surely it is no replacement for the once booming oil sector. It is a small substitute and provides for some employment. It can never bring in the kind of money which oil brought in.

This plight of Texas and its oil saga goes on to show one state/country should not depend on just one source of income and that too something as volatile as oil. There have to substitutes to spread the risk. We think that the Texans might learn the lesson now but if oil starts booming again, all these life lessons will once get drowned in the excesses of life. And yes, this is something the Gulf countries also need to watch out for.