In war-torn regions, landmines remain a silent killer, even decades later. They maim thousands of people each year, especially children.

Heidi Kühn, founder of Roots of Peace, told EpochTV’s “Bay Area Innovators” program how she came to develop a business model to plant seeds of peace by turning “mines to vines,” or removing landmines and converting dangerous territories into farmland.

The organization started in her family home in 1997, when the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco asked Kühn to host a reception of 100 people to talk about the dangers of landmines. Princess Diana, who raised awareness about landmines harming and killing innocent civilians and children, had just died. Kühn was asked to host the reception in her honor.

“I think a good steward removes these seeds of hatred buried beneath the soil, long after the guns of war have silenced,“ she said. ”And when these mines are removed, the land is no longer held hostage, but it has access to farmers and animals and cows that produce the milk for the families.”

The newly established agricultural lands feed those who have suffered while living there and will continue to feed future generations. She said many places across the world have benefited from this model, including Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vietnam.

Vietnam

This year is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Kühn recalled working in Quang Tri Province, which formerly contained part of the Demilitarized Zone. According to Kühn, 80 percent of the land is still contaminated by landmines, and many children and farmers fall victim to the explosive remnants. Eight pounds, or the approximate weight of a newborn child, is all that is needed to detonate a landmine. Kühn’s organization has worked with the local Vietnamese women who have spent their lives watching over the area.

“They say, ‘Mrs. Kühn, we’re mothers,’“ Kühn said. ”‘Our children kick soccer balls out of a field. We tell them not to get the ball, but it’s the only ball in the village, and when nobody’s looking, what will a child do? Retrieve the ball. So we’re making our land safe for our children.’”

Once Kühn visited a 17-year-old boy at a hospital who had picked up a cluster munition, thinking that it was a rock he could use to fix his bicycle. It blew off his arm and most of his face.

“Through mumbled words, he thanked me for being at his bedside,“ Kühn said. ”And the very forgiving Vietnamese mother was over my shoulder, holding my arm. To see these families, these people, humans, who are suffering post-conflict, it keeps me going back.”

In the past 15 years, she and her organization have trained thousands of Vietnamese farmers to grow black pepper and, more recently, vanilla beans on the former battlefields.

“That, to me, is peace on earth, peace through agriculture,” she said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kühn recalled a tragic story about how children in Bosnia and Herzegovina, repatriated back to a village, could not trust the earth beneath their feet.

“They ran through the fields of their home and picked bouquets of flowers for their mother, three small children, and one—you heard a boom,” she said.

“And what did two other children do? They run to help their best friend. Boom, boom. And the whole village gathered and held the parents back as those D miners went slowly, slowly to carve a safe path to retrieve and save those children. And stories are just so hard to tell. ... They died slowly, calling for their parents.”

Kühn explained how dangerous and arduous it is to find and remove those hidden landmines. Mothers in Angola, Afghanistan, and Vietnam use metal detectors and hover inch by inch over the ground in pure silence and concentration.

“The time and energy that it takes costs about $3 to put in a landmine and about $1,000 to take [it] out, because [of] the time and the labor-intensive concentration that it takes to comb the earth and then go back and quality assure it, to assure that the land is safe,” she said.

A Meeting With the Taliban

In every country where Kühn and her organization intend to work, they request permission from the government. In August 2021, she and her husband had dinner with the Taliban to discuss their work in Afghanistan.

“They said across the table halfway through, ‘Mrs. Kuhn, we don’t look at you as a woman; we look at you as a mother who’s feeding our children,’“ she said. ”‘You have full permission to work in our country.’”

Roots of Peace has helped Afghanistan increase agricultural exports such as fresh fruits to India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates from $250 million in 2014 to $1.4 billion.

Healing the Soil and Soul

Kühn walked her first minefield in January 2000 and saw firsthand the devastation the children face every day.

“Children who looked at my hand and said, ‘Mrs. Kühn, is it true that the children in America can hike the mountains and run the beaches without fear of landmines?’“ she said. ”They said it must be heaven. And I looked at them and just [had] tears in my eyes.”

In February 2011, she worked for a year in Israel and the Palestinian Territories after a 10-year-old boy stepped on a landmine. He heard of a mother who was dedicated to removing the explosives.

“He called me to his bedside. ... I flew,“ Kühn said. ”And this little boy asked for a landmine-free world. I promised him, seeing him without a leg and the injury and the suffering of a child.”

Roots of Peace lobbied at the Knesset in Israel and traveled back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah, West Bank, to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

They raised half a million dollars from vintners in California’s Napa Valley to mine the fields of Bethlehem, West Bank.

“It’s not just Israel, Palestine, Gaza—all land is holy, so I do believe peace is possible from the ground up, and we must begin by removing the landmines in both soil and soul,” Kühn said.

In October 2019, Kühn received the Gandhi Seva Medal in New Delhi on what would have been Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday. In November 2023 in India, she received the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for social justice.

Kühn said Roots of Peace has removed hundreds of thousands of landmines so far and has planted 8 million fruit trees on former war-torn lands.