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Could pomegranates stop the lethal heroin trade

THE most important weapon in eliminating heroin is the humble pomegranate, according to a pioneering charity founder.

James Brett is spearheading a campaign to persuade farmers in Afghanistan to switch from growing poppies to growing pomegranates.

Yesterday he was in Cardiff as a guest speaker at the annual conference of Cymorth Cymru, the organisation that represents people in supported housing.

Mr Brett told the Western Mail about his charity Pom 354.

He said: “I recognised that Afghanistan not only grew the best pomegranates in the world. They also produced more than 90% of the world’s heroin. From research I undertook I came to realise that sales of pomegranate on the global market could outstrip the value to Afghanistan of the opium industry.

“There have been organised poppy eradication programmes, but their effectiveness has been very debatable. I’m not going to voice my own opinions on the strategy of poppy eradication, but with Pom 354 we are putting in place something that is completely viable for the farmers, and that’s vital to the sustainability of the project in Afghanistan.

“The tribal elders are very happy that someone has come and started a project they can believe in. There’s a lot of unity there and we’re just getting ready to get started on a large scale. One of the biggest delays has been the bureaucracy of funding applications to do with donor agencies.

“We’ve held three tribal gatherings [known as loyal jurgas] to confirm the support we’ve got from the Afghan people, and we’ve got to the point now where we’ve got the support of the whole tribal system of Afghanistan.

“The last jurga I spoke at was on November 27 last year, and there were 6,500 tribal elders from different parts of Afghanistan who attended. We got their full support.

“We’re looking at installing a factory in Kandahar to produce pomegranate concentrate and if possible pomegranate jam. We’d like to see at the end of this year containers of fresh pomegranate leaving Afghanistan for supermarkets.”

Mr Brett said there was a lot of interest in pomegranates in the West because of the fruit’ s health benefits.

“Over the course of the next 10 years we would like to plant 45.9 million trees, which would cover an area slightly larger than the areas which are used for poppy production,” he said. “But that’s not just a one-man job. It will take the unity of the international community, governments, donor agencies, the public.”

He explained how individuals could help his project by sponsoring a pomegranate tree. Details are on the charity’s website www.pom354.com. He said: “For £8 a year over five years you could end up not only feeding a family in Afghanistan for 70-odd years, but helping to take heroin off the streets of our country.

“One thing that’s very important is putting the Pom 354 logo on products, getting their endorsement. The first product is a drink called Alibi. From every can that’s sold, 5p goes to the Pom 354 initiative. Of that, 3p may go to Afghanistan and 2p may stay in the UK to provide more counsellors to help addicts or other facilities and services.

Asked if he had been in contact with the Taliban, Mr Brett said: “In the complexity of the tribal system in Afghanistan, the Taliban are in every element of society. Anyone who says different isn’t correct. When I talked at the three tribal gatherings, the Taliban were present. I believe that if we don’t communicate with every faction of this problem, we’re not going to solve it. The Taliban are already aware that I’m more than ready for a conversation with them.

“I’m not too bothered about the danger. It’s not about that. It’s about doing something I think that needs to be done.”