THIS ancient land is telling the world that it has found a replacement for the world's largest opium poppy crop. Sweet, juicy pomegranates are the latest step in a $12 million (£8 million), US-funded initiative to get Afghan farmers to turn their backs on the drugs trade.
It is hoped the pomegranate industry can cash in on the wave of the fruit's popularity in Europe and the United States, where it is celebrated for its high levels of antioxidants, which protect cells from damage by free radicals.
Last year,
Afghanistan exported its first pomegranates to outlets of the French chain Carrefour in Dubai.
The fruit, larger and redder than many pomegranates imported from Turkey or North Africa, was a hit. Carrefour quickly placed orders for all its shops in the Middle East, according to US funders and Afghan officials.
Mohammad Asif Rahimi, the Afghanistan agriculture minister, said at this week's launch ceremony at a Kabul hotel: "They found out that anar (pomegranates] from Afghanistan is probably the best tasting. It's sweet; it's juicy."
Afghanistan's most successful export – agricultural or otherwise – is opium. It produced 8,200 tons of the drug in 2007, up 34 per cent on 2006. Though opium production is expected to drop back this year, Afghanistan will remain the world's largest producer of the crop by far.
However, farmers willing to put in the extra care and investment required for fruit trees can make more money growing pomegranates, said Loren Stoddard, USAid's head of alternative development and agriculture.
On average, farmers make about $2,000 per acre with pomegranates, versus $1,320 per acre growing poppies. But in a country where large regions are still war zones, there are barriers and high costs to creating a sustainable export business.
Lorries on major transit routes are subject to frequent attacks. Last year's test run of pomegranates had to be flown out in cargo planes that supply the US military.
Anthony Cordesman, an Afghanistan and Middle East expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that Afghanistan lacks the security, infrastructure and oversight to make projects such as the pomegranate initiative realistic. Growing pomegranates is much riskier for farmers than cultivating poppies, which is supported by a sophisticated system put in place by drug traffickers.
Joel Hafvenstein, author of Opium Season, a book about working on a poppy alternative crop project in southern Afghanistan, said: "The benefits of the poppy go beyond just what the farmer can get when he sells it at the farm gate. Traffickers provide advance payments, credit, contract farming arrangements, technical advice, a whole package of benefits that don't come with any other crop."
BACKGROUNDAMONG Afghanistan's 48 different types of the fruit, the Kandahari pomegranate, named after the southern Afghan province where it is grown, is one of the most sought-after in India.
Pomegranates are considered local delicacies in Afghanistan.
Each is about the size of an apple, with a thick, reddish skin and hundreds of seeds embedded in tough, white pith. This time of year, the red seeds are consumed everywhere in Kabul – as juice, spooned straight from the fruit, or piled on a tray and sold by the scoop to picnickers in parks.
Afghanistan's pomegranate industry has long depended on domestic sales and small-scale exports to nearby countries, but for years, border fighting has all but ruined its reputation. Strict US pest control regulations mean that Afghan pomegranates will not be showing up in New York or California for a while yet, although American growers insist there is room in the market for everyone.
