ON A MISSION: Heidi Kühn, Roots of Peace founder and chief executive officer, holds up an inactivated land mine as she explains her organization’s program to dig up the mines and return the de-mined land to productive agricultural use. In addition to developing vineyards in Afghanistan with UC Davis, the group is planting rice in Cambodia, orchards in Croatia and wheat in Iraq where minefields once were. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

UC Davis will partner with San Rafael-based Roots of Peace and other groups to replace land mines with grapevines in Afghanistan through a $10 million contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This contract, including $6 million in federal funds from USAID's Rebuilding Agricultural Markets in Afghanistan Program and $4 million in matching grants, will give $870,000 to UCD to train farmers, establish vineyard nurseries and develop marketing centers.

Heidi Kühn, Roots of Peace founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the group is “thrilled to be taking the next steps to replacing the legacy of war with the literal fruits of peace.”

The mines to vines initiative was announced during a news conference Tuesday at the university’s research orchards and vineyards.

Standing at a podium displaying inactivated land mines and a basket of grapes, Kühn said when a mine is planted, “it is a guaranteed lethal harvest.” These mines maim and kill without discriminating between “the boot of a soldier or the sandal of a child,” she said.

Roots of Peace, a nonprofit organization founded in 1997, is dedicated to the eradication of land mines by returning de-mined land to productive farming. In addition to developing grape vineyards in Afghanistan, the group is planting rice in Cambodia, orchards in Croatia and wheat in Iraq where minefields once were.

In Afghanistan, the organization has already funded the removal of more than 100,000 land mines and unexploded ordnance in the Shomali Plains north of Kabul.

Kühn said Roots of Peace and its partners hope to remove more of these “seeds of destruction” and replace them with vineyards “representing the seeds we have in common.”

There are more than 70 million land mines in more than 70 countries, Kühn said. About 26,000 people are maimed or killed by land mines each year, meaning someone steps on a mine about every 22 minutes, it has been reported.

Afghanistan is one of the most severely land-mine affected countries in the world with an estimated 5 million to 7 million land mines planted over two decades by the Soviets and mujahideen rebel fighters in attempts to control the country. Mines maim or kill 150 to 300 people per month in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

Each mine costs about $3 to plant, but up to $1,000 to remove, Kühn said. Roots of Peace is generously supported by numerous California vintners, including Diane Disney Miller of Silverado Vineyards and Mike Grgich of Grgich Hills Cellar.

Grgich said he wants children to be able to play in the schoolyard, run through the vineyards and pick grapes carefree like he did growing up, without the fear of stepping on land mines.

Roots of Peace co-founder Gary Kühn said 80 to 85 percent of Afghanistan’s economy depends on agriculture. Grapes and raisins are the country’s major crops.

This project will teach the growers about grape industry technologies developed during the two decades that fighting consumed their country. Gary Kühn said there are 80 Afghani farmers lined up to participate.

“They’re very much willing to work with you on the project,” he said.

UCD’s role involves training farmers and implementing an agricultural extension service, establishing a two-tiered vineyard nursery system and developing enhanced postharvest collection and marketing centers. The extension service will be modeled after the University of California’s Cooperative Extension Service, which works with farmers to apply research to problems in production agriculture.

According to the UC Davis News Service, the university initially will deliver a series of training workshops to 40 extension agents including University of Kabul graduates and returning employees and recruits from the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Kabul University faculty members will attend these workshops, assist with program development and eventually assume full responsibility for the extension program.

UCD also will help establish nurseries to begin providing virus-free, adapted plants for a comprehensive vineyard-replanting program. More than 45 percent of Afghanistan’s vineyards have been destroyed by a quarter-century of war, and many of the remaining vineyards are in poor health, according to Patrick Brown, director of the International Programs Office in UCD’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The nursery program will include heritage Afghan cultivars that have been maintained at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s germplasm repository at UCD, as well as improved cultivated grape varieties from the world’s leading grape-producing countries, UCD News Service reported. The nursery program's central activities will include identification, preservation and optimal utilization of Afghanistan’s valuable local grape varieties.

Collection and marketing centers will be developed to help decrease losses of produce following harvest. The centers also will aid in standardizing the quality of the produce and enhancing product safety to help ensure the produce is more marketable and brings higher profit for farmers.