SPECIAL SECTION: KIRKLAND SIGNATURE
Clearing the land
On our way to the pepper farms, we stop in a rural area where an EOD team is actively clearing a field. Working with bombing maps from the war provided by the United States government, PTVN has identified this area as still dangerous from cluster munitions – bombs containing smaller bomblets that disperse in a wide area. These bomblets had a notoriously high failure rate – possibly 30 percent – Pham explains. The maps were accurate: The team found 228 unexploded bombs in a 10-hectare area.
Meticulously scanning the dirt step by step with metal detectors, the team is hurrying to finish the job within a two-month window, as farmers will soon start planting cassava and peanuts here. We are informed that a small bomb was detected shortly before our visit.
The EOD team has cordoned off the area with yellow tape. We’ re shown a hole that has been carefully dug around an oblong metal object sunk into the earth, nearly a metre deep. Sandbags have been stacked around the hole; smaller explosives have been set around the bomb to destroy it on-site.
A technician strings a detonator wire to our group, some 90 metres away, and nearby farmers are warned through a bullhorn to stay away. A countdown proceeds to zero, and I’ m motioned to push the detonator button. A startling explosion shakes the earth and a white plume drifts above the area.
In the years since 1995, PTVN has removed more than 100,000 dangerous land mines, bombs, mortar shells and grenades from over 405 hectares of land. Villagers have been able to move back into these areas and build homes and schools, and use the fields to farm again. However, it’ s estimated that only 20 percent of Quang Tri province has been cleared to date.
Offering a market, and more
In 2012, John Lee, at the time Costco’ s global nut buyer, was in Vietnam looking for new sources of cashews. That effort didn’ t work out, but local food brokers advised him that coffee and pepper were Vietnam’ s best cash crops. A year later, now a spices buyer, Lee returned to Vietnam.“ We went back looking for pepper farmers,” he explains.
ROBERT PAETZ TIM TALEVICH
Pepper grows in limited tropical regions. After the war ended, it slowly gained prominence as a viable crop for Vietnamese farmers, but most of the growth has been in the past decade as global demand has skyrocketed. While touring pepper farms, Lee learned about PTVN’ s efforts to expand pepper-growing farms to Quang Tri province. He says Costco was interested in supporting
the program, as was Sahale Snacks, which collaborated with Costco to donate a portion of product sales to PTVN, and Olde Thompson. Later, Olam, which partners with Costco to source pepper in Vietnam, agreed to provide technical expertise to the new pepper farmers.
With this corporate support in hand, PTVN tapped the local Women’ s Union, an
30 | MAR / APR 2023 COSTCO CONNECTION