Sainsburys sales plant 100,000 trees
Sainsburys sales plant 110,000 trees
New Fruit bar range goes on sale
Launch of new Plant for Peace fruit bar range in Sainsbury's and Waitrose.
British Government support
DFID - Department for International Development, the British aid agency, supports Plant for Peace Foundation with funding to establish a Pomegranate Leaf Community Group in Kandahar Afghanistan.
Pomegranate Leaf Herbal Tea
Plant for Peace develops a range of Pomegranate Leaf herbal tea.
Sainsbury's agrees to sell new fruit bar range
Katherine Wilkinson, Buyer of Sweet Biscuits and Cereal bars at Sainsbury's agrees to sell the Plant for Peace fruit bars.
Fruit bar designs
New Plant for Peace fruit bar range artwork design completed.
Raw Cocoa coated Mulberry
Confectionary buyer at Sainsbury's confirms Plant for Peace Raw Cocoa Coated Mulberry taste great and confirms selling the range in Sainsbury's when ready.
Branding agency helps Plant for Peace
Landor becomes branding agency for Plant for Peace and undertakes development of the Plant for Peace brand pro bono.
Further support from Chief Marketing Officer at Sainsbury's
Sarah Warby introduces James Brett to President of EMEA at Landor, a global branding agency.
Support from Sainsbury's Product development team
Susi Richards, Head of Product Development at Sainsbury's and Nicola Bramley, Senior Food Technologist in Sainsbury's Product Development kitchen take over product development of Plant for Peace products pro bono.
Support from Chief Marketing Officer at Sainsbury's
Sainsbury's Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Warby, invites team at Sainsbury's to support Plant for Peace.
Article in The Grocer magazine
The Grocer magazine covers a two page article of the story of Plant for Peace.
Raw Cocoa coated Mulberry
Plant for Peace commences development of a range of Raw Cocoa Coated Mulberry.
Ingredient preparation in Afghanistan
Plant for Peace establishes a Mill facility at the Sorting / Grading / Packing facility to commence fruit powder production.
Article in Waitrose kitchen magazine
Waitrose magazine covers a two page article of the story of Plant for Peace.
Ingredient preparation in Afghanistan
Plant for Peace establishes a Sorting / Grading / Packing facility in Afghanistan and trains Afghan male and female staff to prepare Afghan mulberry for export.
Launch of original fruit bar range
Plant for Peace launches original fruit bar range in 250 Waitrose stores and all 770 Holland & Barrett stores.
Holland & Barrett give huge support to Plant for Peace:
Holland & Barrett shows massive support of Plant for Peace by preparing a Plant for Peace free in store marketing campaign for the launch of the Plant for Peace fruit bars. The campaign involves posters outside their stores, digital advertising screens in store, product display stands next to the tills for maximum customer awareness, shelf barkers, twitter competitions and an article in the Holland & Barrett magazine "Healthy".
Successful import from Afghanistan by road
Plant for Peace successfully import its first full lorry of mulberry by road from Kabul Afghanistan to major fruit bar factory in Austria.
Outsourcing fruit bar production
Major snack bar factory in Austria agrees to produce Plant for Peace fruit bars.
Rowan Atkinson supports Plant for Peace
Rowan Atkinson supports Plant for Peace with a Thank you message to the smallholder farmers who successfully passed the pomegranate seed to pomegranate powder training programme.
Plant for Peace Foundation Pomegranate training programme
Plant for Peace commences a Pomegranate seed to Pomegranate training programme in Afghanistan for smallholder farmers.
Chairman of Plant for Peace Foundation
Roddy Gow OBE becomes Chairman of Plant for Peace Foundation
Strong support from new Trustee
Major General Arthur Denaro, previously Commandant of Royal Military College Sandhurst joins Plant for Peace Foundation as a Trustee
Fruit bars
Using the newly developed Plant for Peace Afghan pomegranate powder, Plant for Peace commences development of the first value added product range. A four flavour range of organic yoghurt coated fruit bars.
Plant for Peace Foundation - Fruitbars
With the strategy established and the road ahead clear, Funktional Group Limited decided on obtaining the necessary investment to establish the company and develop a 'proof of concept' range of products from Afghanistan. The above picture illustrates the outcome of this exercise.
Freud Communications
Public relations company Freud Communications supports Plant for Peace.
Plant for Peace Steering Group
The Plant for Peace Steering Group was formed in order to get the implementation of the Plant for Peace agriculture and horticulture development strategy for Afghanistan (2012 - 2027) firmly under way.
Plant for Peace Foundation
Plant for Peace Foundation becomes a registered charity, registering with the UK charity commission, charity registration number 1148602.
Royal Patronage from award winning environmentalist
HRH Princess Basma bint Ali becomes Patron of Plant for Peace.
Rowan Atkinson supports Plant for Peace
Turning pomegranate into powder
Plant for Peace starts the development of the first Afghanistan value added ingredient.
The strategy paper
A generous grant from a Plant for Peace benefactor enabled the assembly of the Plant for Peace Implementation team to write a comprehensive strategy paper for the Afghan initiative.
Planting of 1.9m pomegranate cuttings
In the 2011 planting season Plant for Peace planted 1.9m pomegranate cuttings in a large nursery and developed a further 20 smaller nurseries.
Plant for Peace creates its own food company
To ensure sustainable livelihoods for the Plant for Peace farmers Plant for Peace Holding Ltd was incorporated as a commercial food company to develop food products and supply the international retailers.
Name Change to Plant for Peace
With farming communities outside of pomegranate growing regions in Afghanistan becoming involved in POM354 a more meaningful was sought that encompassed all types of farmers produce and POM354 changed its name to Plant for Peace.
105,000 pomegranate trees
In the 2010 planting season 800 farmers were trained and provided with planting materials to plant pomegranate orchards. 105,000 new trees were planted and support was given to the farmers for one year to ensure proper maintenance of the trees.
Kandahar Jirga
Plant for Peace holds the Kandahar Jirga with 5,600 Elders attending.
New Patronage for Plant for Peace
General Sir David Richards GCB CBE DSO, UK Chief of Defence staff and former Commander of International Security Armed Forces in Afghanistan becomes Patron of Plant for Peace.
Mazar Jirga
The Mazar Jirga in the Northern province of Balkh was attended by 7,000 Elders. The main reason for this was the remoteness of the Jirga venue. The old fortress was located 35 miles from the nearest large town and buses needed to be chartered to get most of the participants to the meeting. However, the stature of the participating Elders and leaders will ensure the validity of the commitment to work on the realisation of the strategy.
Herat Jirga
The Jirga in the Western province of Herat was attended by 12,000 Elders and farmer leaders. At each of the Jirgas it is tradition that a warm lunch is served to the participants. The picture shows James Brett and some Elders enjoying the lunch and discussing the proposed strategy.
Farah Jirga
The Jirga in the Southwestern province of Farah was attended by 14,211 Elders and leaders. Again, the value and sense of the Plant for Peace strategy was recognised, and a unanimous decision to support the initiative was reached.
Pom354 Charity dinner Kensington Palace
In March 2009, POM354 held a charity dinner at Kensington Palace in London. Special guests included UK British Army Chief General Sir Richard Dannatt , Baroness Rawlings and Kay Burley from Sky News. More than 20 Afghans visited the UK from Afghanistan to attend the event.
The first farmer gets his trees
The journey has begun in earnest!
The short window of time available for planting pomegranate trees and delays in processing project proposals, resulted in 'only' planting 40,000 trees during the 2009 season. James Brett financed this exercise mainly from his own resources.
By this time, the attitude of everyone directly involved was very much: "Failure is no longer an option!"
Burning US$ 780 million of opium
After the Jalalabad meeting, the Ministry of Counter narcotics arranged for a select group of representatives and the national media, to go into the mountains near Jalalabad and destroy confiscated opium, estimated to represent approximately US$ 780 million.
The Jalalabad Jirga
The Jalalabad Jirga was attended by appr. 6,500 Elders and leading farmers from the Eastern provinces. A picture of the people at the meeting is included in the slides at the top of this page. Again, the entire meeting decided to support the Plant for Peace initiative.
The Second Jirga
The second Jirga was considerably smaller than the first, but, with representatives from the four Eastern provinces, the impact was substantial as these provincial leaders, again, decided to fully support the Plant for Peace initiative.
The First Jirga
A Jirga is a traditional meeting of tribal Elders to decide on a wide variety of issues. All decisions must be unanimous and are unconditionally binding to the participants of the meeting and the tribes they represent.
The Jirga was held near the first farmer's village (Markoh) in Nangarhar province (Eastern Afghanistan). Some 200 Elders were invited. Almost 400 Elders from all over the province attended the meeting. After considering the proposal presented by James Brett, the Elders decided unanimously to support the initiative.
Pomegranate is the Answer
By walking into a poppy field, James Brett took the first steps towards the realisation of the Plant for Peace initiative.
Sharing their common humanity allowed the farmer and James to connect and embark on a shared journey.
The experience has not always been easy, but there was never any doubt about the sense and validity behind the desire to develop a strategy to improve the livelihoods of the rural communities in Afghanistan. This applies to the mindset of these two first participants, as well as to the commitment of the many people who have joined the Plant for Peace initiative since 2007.
