| It's hot now in Afghanistan, where 35%
of the population is under-fed. But soon it will be cold, and many of the
country's roads will become inaccessible because of snow and landslides, making
it difficult to get food to market. Knowing these things gets Stacy McCoy out of bed every morning and out into the countryside, visiting Afghani women and farmers to offer new agricuhural techniques and hardier seeds. She also works to improve their marketing skills so that they can be exposed to new ways To sell goods in the marketplace. The marketing efforts have helped organize the women and farmers into teams so that they have more food to offer collectively and can work more closely together to share their knowledge. McCoy is one of many American scientists who have devoted their careers to international development in the name of making the world a better place. "It can be hard living away from family and that is a choice sometimes going into international work, but I'm pretty content to stay here and not too anxious about the security situation," she says. She relies on her environmental science background to help Afghanis cultivate stronger, more resilient seeds and says her ability to speak French has helped immensely in her work in Africa and the Middle East. She believes her ability to speak a second language was a huge help in getting her first assignment, in French-speaking Morocco, through the Peace Corps. McCoy is now officially the agro-enterprise program manager for Catholic Relief Services' Afghanistan. "Today, I'm helping people grow crops that will have a decent enough market value to sell at a profit," she says. She is particularly proud of her group's work to bring animal husbandry (畜牧业) up to a workable economic avenue for the farmers. Her group was able to work with the farmers to find effective ways to yield more dairy, which in turn brings more revenue at the market. "It can be tough getting an initial foot in the door in an international development program," McCoy acknowledges, "but it can help to take a post in a 'difficult' country." |