PICTURE this: you live in one of the world's poorest regions, one that has been decimated by decades of conflict.

Your income is purely from farming, where you make just enough to feed your big family a bit of maize now and again.

Then one day, some men come to your door with promises of riches.

If you grow opium, they say, we will make you wealthy. What would you do?

As the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime puts it: "Given the current opium prices within Afghanistan, it is clear that no other crop can compete with opium poppy as a source of income."

So, in a nation where the average daily wage is little more than £1, you grow poppies.

But now there are plans to destroy those crops. And with them the livelihoods of farmers across the land.

Around 3,300 UK troops are heading to the country to help boost security and combat trafficking in drugs.

As one farmer says: "If our crops are destroyed we cannot feed our children."

There's another side to this coin though. Because the opium gets into the hands of traffickers and, before you know it, on to the streets of Britain where it sets about destroying lives and tearing families apart.

From our point of view the obvious answer to getting rid of heroin is to destroy it at source.

Wipe out the crop in Afghanistan, which provides 90 per cent of the world's opium, and you're on your way to defeating the problem.

The only thing is, you simultaneously wipe out legions of families in that stricken part of the world.

This week saw the arrival of four Afghan farmers in East Lancashire as guests of the Senlis Council, an anti-drugs think tank which nevertheless opposes crop destruction.

Before the delegation moved on to London to tell MPs about their predicament, they met people on the streets of Blackburn whose lives have been blighted by heroin.

One told of how her friends had lost their children, their lives, or turned to crime all because of drugs.

It was the farmers' crops which did this, she added. But the farmers have an answer that would make both ends of this drugs trail happy.

They want to carry on growing their crops and feeding their families.

All they ask is that their crops are licensed and used for pain relief and medicines.

It's a good idea. Because at the same time, the crops are taken from the hands of traffickers and don't make their way to Britain's streets.

It seems like a simple enough solution. Let's see what happens, eh?

I'll be honest I'm not hopeful. That's because of our track record at punishing the poor abroad.

Basically, if we can't see it, it's not there which is why we happily let sportswear companies use sweatshops full of children to sew their trainers together. It's not our problem, is it? We just wear the things.

All over the world, poor communities resort to desperate measures to feed mouths, usually because of the demand created here in the West.

But as long as they are the ones paying the price, who cares?