Iowa Farmer Today

ISU sophomore Abbey Avery conducts an interview at an Ethiopian butchery. During her 8-week internship in Ethiopia last summer, Avery interviewed farmers, consumers and butchers for her research on red meat and meat consumption.

DES MOINES — The World Food Summit in 1996 set a goal to cut world hunger in half by 2015, the year Abbey Avery turns 30.

Avery, now a sophomore in animal science at Iowa State University, was one of 13 students who participated in the World Food Prize's internship program this past summer.

The Borlaug-Ruan Internship, named after World Food Prize (WFP) founders John Ruan and Norman Borlaug, allows students to work in research centers in Latin America, Asia or Africa during the summer.

"This is a working internship that allows them to work for eight weeks doing whatever the centers need them to do," said Lisa Fleming, WFP youth programs manager.

"It really does open their eyes and help them decide what they want to do."

Avery spent her summer in Addis Ababa, Ethopia, at the International Livestock Research Institute.

She is interested in red meat and meat consumption, and Ethiopia is the largest livestock producer in Africa. Even so, Avery found it was rare for poor farmers to have much access to meat.

While they have a cow, they would use it for everything from transportation to energy until the cow is unusable. After the cow is butchered, costs are so high, the farmer can rarely afford the meat for his family, she said.

Avery of Rowan in Central Iowa did background research and field work following butchering, consumer and farming trends.

"It completely changed what I want to do with my future," she said. "Now, I want to help increase meat consumption in developing countries."

The unpaid internship has helped many interns attain paid internships later in their schooling.

"They are looking for someone with different experience, and they see that a 16-year-old went to Kenya and they say, ‘Wow,' " Fleming said.

This summer, Avery will be conducting a similar research program called "Constraints on the use of animal source foods for young children in Ghana," through the animal science and other departments from ISU. She hopes the experience in Ghana will allow her to be more active in helping solve problems than her Ethiopian experience allowed.

To apply for the Borlaug-Ruan Internship, students must be WFP Youth Institute graduates and be juniors or seniors in high school or college freshmen.

"We the think the uniqueness is because they are high schools students," Fleming said.

They must submit a letter of interest and have letters of recommendation from teachers. About 20 are invited to be interviewed, Avery said.

The students of particular fields are placed with corresponding research centers but they are often of different backgrounds.

After their experience, interns are required to write a paper about their experience and present it at the WFP Youth Institute the following fall.

The program, which started in 1998 with two interns, has interns who pursued many career and school interests.

Borlaug once told Flemming he was convinced the internship program was helping to spawn the agricultural leaders of 2040-2050.

Ten years from now, in the face of the World Food Summit's goal, Avery hopes to be involved in solving the food crisis.

Her long-term goals are to live on a farm near Ames, working for ISU with occasional overseas research projects working towards alleviating world hunger.

"A lot of goals are more attainable than we think. But, it is going to take some time and a lot of work," she said.