Can one mad Englishman save the world with pomegranates?

I firmly believe that one person can change the world, and this story illustrates how it can happen.

James Brett took a business trip to Pakistan in 1999 and, as a recovering addict, made a connection between his first taste of pomegranate juice and the burgeoning heroin trade coming out of the poppy fields along the roads in parts of that country and neighboring Afghanistan.

The poppy, of course, is also tied to the growth of terrorist camps in that region and may fund cells around the world

So can one person solve multiple problems in this difficult area of the world? Well, first they have to just try.

The elders told Brett that their decision was based not only on a desire to maintain a level of stability, but because he was the first person who had ever come to them as just an ordinary man rather than a member of a foreign government or a military advisor, someone who simply wanted to see positive change.

Brett went on to market Pomegreat, which has health benefits as well, and now to head a global effort to support wide transition in the region of <a href="POM354“>poppy fields to pomegranate farms.

I’d like to sign on for adopting a tree, but it’s a five-year commitment and I just don’t know what situation I’ll be in that far ahead, so I’ll just make a straight up donation. But I hope to get some local organizations on board the project.

In my opinion, this project has a greater likelihood of winning the “war on terror” than all the GIs, guns and bombs we can send. Combine it with an army of schoolteachers and doctors, and we could not lose. (Or we could go the traditional military route, like Obama seems poised to do. Let’s ask Gorbachev how that might work out.)

h/t nonny mouse at Crooks and Liars