Unfinished Business
Landmines Leave Deadly Legacy
Heidi and her son, Christian in Quang Tri, Vietnam. Credit: Roots of Peace
"Do something for peace," Heidi Kühn's 98-year-old grandmother said when she left Heidi the McNear family home in Marin County, California. Heidi never forgot her grandma's words, and 25 years ago, she founded the humanitarian nonprofit Roots of Peace. Her years of effort and commitment have earned her the title of the 2023 World Food Prize Laureate.
I've covered past World Food Prize Laureates since 1986. Many have been scientific researchers, geneticists, biologists, and plant breeders like Norman Borlaug, the 1970 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an Iowa native. All have been worthy recipients.
Heidi Kühn, 65, combines the goals of reclaiming agricultural land in war-torn countries, and restoring the potential for farmers living there to earn a sustainable livelihood. In the past 25 years, she has helped to provide the support required to de-mine more than 100,000 land mines in 10 countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia/Herzegovina Croatia, Cambodia, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Vietnam, and Guatemala.
Earlier this month, the U.S. made the controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. This week, Ukraine began firing these against Russian positions in southeastern Ukraine. It's casting a long shadow over global efforts, including Kuhn's Roots of Peace, to reduce the long-term civilian carnage caused by cluster munitions. Nearly 40% malfunction, and about 80% of the ultimate victims are civilians. Children account for 42% of these casualties.
Mines to Vines
Kühn, a former broadcast journalist, was a mother of three children when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 30. After surgery and treatment, she was able to have a fourth child. In 1997, she was inspired following the death of Princess Diana to take up Diana's mission to de-mine war-torn countries.
Working in her basement, Kühn was driven by the phrase, "from mines to vines". She began holding backyard fundraisers, and introduced herself to prominent Napa Valley vintners like Croatian Milenko "Mike" Grgich, convincing them to hold fundraisers as well. In January 2000, she donned a helmet and flak jacket and walked her first minefield in Croatia.
"Demining is only one-half of the problem--it's also about regenerating agriculture and jobs for farmers," Kühn responded in a 2023 Live with the Laureate interview with TV journalist, Cheryl Jennings. "It's food security."
Croatia once was known for its world-class vineyards. Yet, 1.2 million landmines were embedded in the land following the 1991-1995 Croatian War of Independence (The Balkan War). Roots of Peace facilitated their removal over 500,000 square meters, and worked with farmers to re-establish Croatia's grape-growing heritage. Today, landmines are confined to one remote nature preserve, and the goal is to clear them completely by 2026.
Croatia has become one of the top tourist destinations in the world. Several of my Iowa friends have traveled there since 2021, and they've enjoyed its breathtaking beauty, as well as its varieties of wine.
Croatia. Photo Credit: Renae Lane
Reviving grape crop for export
Kühn and Roots of Peace also have worked extensively in Afghanistan. Vintner Diane Miller came to Kühn's basement as a volunteer. In 2003, she surprised Kühn with a $200,000 check, revealing that Walt Disney was her father. The funds, combined with a partnership of the United Nations Mine Action Service and the Halo Trust (Hazardous Area Life Support Organization), removed 100,000 land mines from the fertile plains north of Kabul.
Kühn's entire family, including her husband, Gary, have been involved in this cause. Although their four children could have grown up in a life of privilege, the Kühns began taking them to minefields when they were teenagers.
A $10 million United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contract awarded to Roots of Peace introduced Afghan farmers in 34 provinces to the T-trellis system of growing grapevines, reducing disease and the threat of winter kill from growing grapes on the ground. "You prune the vine, you double the yield, and farmers get more money, " Kühn says. A total of six million fruit trees were planted, along with pomegranates, melons, and many other fruits.
Afghanistan is 80% dependent on agriculture for jobs. It once was known as the garden of central Asia. "But so many men were killed, and the generational knowledge of farming was lost," Kühn says.
Through Roots of Peace, 220,000 Afghan farmers have been trained by agronomists from the University of California-Davis, Texas A & M, and Washington State.
Roots of Peace also introduced and built the first cold storage refrigeration in Afghanistan, teaching Afghans how to pack fruit in corrugated boxes, and ship to new markets in India and Delhi. "It doubled and tripled the income from raising poppies," Kühn says. Afghanistan has increased its exports from $250 million in 2014 to $1.5 billion in 2020. "We need a business model for peace," she says.
Heidi, middle, Afthanistan. Credit: Roots of Peace
Since the Taliban's take-over of Afghanistan, the challenges, especially related to working with women, have grown. "We were faced with a choice to pull out, or let fruit rot in the field," Kühn says. "We serve no flag, only the farmer on the ground."
Today Roots of Peace is one of about 10 nonprofits still working in Afghanistan. One focus is a USAID-funded Kitchen Gardens program for women, providing seeds, tools, and teaching them to grow produce to feed their own families. Afghan men take the surplus to sell at market. "I was told that they don't look at me as a woman, but as a mother bringing food to children," Kühn says.
Prolonging ravages of war
Today an estimated 60 million active land mines still are triggered and poised for destruction in 60 countries.
Vietnam is one front-line effort. More bombs were dropped in Quang Tri Province than in World War I and World War II combined. As much as 75% of the land in the former Demilitarized Zone still contains explosive remnants of war.
"People think the war ended on April 30, 1975," Kühn says. "Over 100,00 Vietnamese have been wounded or killed by unexploded ordnance since then." Thanks to a partnership with the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), today Vietnam is growing black pepper trees yielding 50 metric tons for export to the U.S., and 3,5000 farmers benefit by selling to the California-based Morton and Bassett Spice Company. Its bottle features a Roots of Peace logo.
"The owner, the late Morton Gothelf, served as a pilot during the Vietnam war, and brought the wounded back to the mainland," Kühn says. "We're turning minefields into thriving farmlands, and changing from subsistence farming to higher-value, export crops."
The Kühn family formed a company called Noble House Spices to wholesale the spices; Noble House gives a percentage of its profit to Roots of Peace.
Heidi with landmine survivor in Vietnam. Credit: Phan Tan Lam
Since 2010, Kühn has met Vietnamese farmers maimed by land mines. "They wear rudimentary protheses, and they're proud they've been trained to shade intercrop cashews and cacao," Kühn says. Over 250,000 cacao (coffee) trees have been planted.
Kühn's son, Tucker, is working in the Northern Triangle and Western Highland provinces of Guatemala. Immigration to the U.S., a 2,000-mile trek, has escalated during the past 15 years. "One of the root causes of outmigration at the U.S. border is young men and women without jobs," Kühn says. "The soil is rich, but they haven't been taught to grow high value crops like specialty coffee, avocados, and onion. The answer isn't investing in higher walls, but new markets."
When Kühn was named World Food Prize Laureate in May, she was working in Azerbaijan, with the Mine Action Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Almost one million landmines are buried there beneath its once vibrant vineyards.
Ukraine in the Crosshairs
Ukraine was known as Europe's breadbasket. In 2013, I wrote about a 20-person delegation sent by Iowa Farm Bureau to the Black Sea region. "They have all the natural resources we have in Iowa," reported Black Hawk County farmer Ben Bader. "When we talk topsoil, we're talk in inches. They're talking in feet."
Today, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine estimates that as much as 30% of its land is riddled and contaminated with landmines.
Odessa was a beautiful wine growing region. Roots of Peace is working with Rotary Club of Ukraine. "We've raised $180,000, but it's only a drip in ocean so far," Kühn says.
It costs about $3 to plant a mine, and about $1,000 to remove one. Farmers often leave the land fallow to reduce the risks of being killed. "The losers of war are the future generations," Kühn says. "The land is held hostage to mass destruction in slow motion."
Farmers near Kherson retrofitted their tractors with armored plates to plant this year's crops. As Russia has withdrawn from its agreement to allow food shipments from Ukraine, it's unleashed missile attacks on the Black Sea port of Odessa. The situation has become even more urgent, raising the spectre of global food shortages.
I'm a far cry from being a foreign policy specialist. Experts have argued that these munitions are needed for the success of Ukraine's counter offensive. They point out that the estimated dud rate for U.S. cluster bombs is only 2.35 % (but critics say that the failure rate likely is higher). They maintain that the Ukranians will be judicious in the use in their own homeland.
We may know more by October 26, when Heidi Kühn will receive the World Food Prize in Des Moines. In the meantime, you might like to read her 2020 book, Breaking Ground. I know that I'm thankful for her work, and for the 300+ employees of Roots of Peace.
As Norman Borlaug said when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, "The first essential component for social justice is adequate food for all mankind."
It's up to us, as Americans, to be mindful of the remnants of war's brutal legacy lurking in Ukraine's fertile soils, and their impact on farmers and agriculture for generations to come.
I’m delighted to be part of the IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE
Thank you for sharing her story. We need daily reminders of humanity and of the legacy that Ms.Kuhn continues to leave for what individuals can accomplish. On a side note, I attended a Chicago high school with a considerable number of Serbians and Croatians. I visited Dubrovnik and rural areas of Serbia under Tito. Both in my high school and in the then Yugoslavia, I could never conceive of the horrors of the Balkan War. Your story left me with a healthy dose of optimism, even amidst the anger and violence in today’s world.
Nice reporting, Cheryl