Ambassador Kenneth Quinn joins as Senior Advisor to Roots of Peace
Roots of Peace is honored to welcome Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, President Emeritus, The World Food Prize, as our Senior Advisor. In his role as former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia--one of the most heavily mined countries in the world-- he learned firsthand the importance of transforming 'mines to vines' by replacing landmines with 'roads and seeds' to heal the wounds of war and create the economics of peace.
Serving as a career diplomat in the U.S. Department of State for 32 years, his vast experience will further our humanitarian goals to cultivate 'Peace Through Agriculture.' During his diplomatic career, Ambassador Quinn served as a Rural Development advisor in the Mekong Delta; on the National Security Council at the White House, at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Vienna, as Chairman of the U.S. Inter-agency Task Force on POW/MIAs; and as Director of Iowa SHARES, the humanitarian campaign that sent Iowa doctors, nurses, medical supplies and food to starving Cambodian refugees.
Dr. Quinn emerged from these experiences as one of the U.S. government's foremost experts on Indochina. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the origins of the radical Pol Pot regime and is widely acknowledged as the first person anywhere to report, in1974, on the genocidal policies of the Khmer Rouge. Twenty years later, while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, his plan of agricultural enhancements and rural roads led to the final eradication of the Khmer Rouge.
Fluent in Vietnamese, Dr. Quinn acted as interpreter for President Gerald Ford at the White House and personally negotiated the first-ever entry by U.S. personnel into a Vietnamese prison to search for U.S. POW/MIAs. He was also a member of the first U.S. team to gain entry to the former Soviet prison in Russia. In January 2020, he and his wife, Le Son, accompanied a Roots of Peace delegation to the former battlefields of Quang Tri, Vietnam, to detonate a landmine with an all-woman demining team from MAG (Mines Advisory Group). Together, we share the vision of turning 'Mines to Vines' in the former DMZ by replacing minefields with sustainable agricultural crops for export and. Trade. Currently, Roots of Peace has trained over 10,000 Vietnamese farmers to export fresh black pepper to Morton & Bassett Spice Company.
The vast expertise of Ambassador Kenneth Quinn will help us achieve our humanitarian goal to cultivate sustainable agricultural crops on former war-torn lands for export and trade worldwide. Welcome to Roots of Peace!