Amy Koenig ’10, now an intern in Bangladesh, brought crops from seed to table at the UMass Amherst Research Farm.
Harvesting Experience
From South Deerfield to South Asia, in search of better food
Measuring plant growth in the fields of the UMass Amherst Research Farm in late August, Amy Koenig ’10 had her mind on Bangladesh. “It’s incredibly densely populated,” she said. “It has half the population of the United States in a country the size of Wisconsin. There is rapid deforestation in the very small area of forest that is left.”
Koenig is trying to aid in alleviating the problems of Bangladesh as an intern there this semester. Her summer job on the South Deerfield farm, she noted, will help her be of good use in South Asia, where she’s now living among the people of the Madhupur forest, researching sustainable agricultural methods.
Koenig is double majoring in Environmental Sciences and Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences to prepare, she said, for a life about “things that matter.” She spent summer 2008 working on organic farms in Ireland and has volunteered at Nuestras Raices, a Holyoke farm run by a community development group. One of her goals is to “make sure everybody gets good quality food, no matter how much money they have.”
At the UMass Amherst Research Farm, Koenig helped bring crops from seed to table. Working with graduate students from Brazil, she planted rows of taioba, maxixe, chipilin, and okra, vegetables popular in Latin America that UMass Amherst is introducing to New England farmers. She fertilized, irrigated, and measured the crops all summer. She weeded. She harvested, washed, and packaged the vegetables. She helped bring them to a local grower cooperative, where the vegetables went on to be marketed in Boston, the New York City area, Washington, DC, and even Martha’s Vineyard, which has a large Brazilian population. This hands-in-the-dirt experience with crop research and the food cycle will be invaluable both in Bangladesh and throughout her planned career in environmental advocacy.
After graduation, Koenig, who grew up in Auburn, Massachusetts, hopes to return to the area to work with the community to increase food awareness and promote environmental education for youth. Standing in the vast silence of the UMass Research Farm, gazing across the open fields and treetops toward Mount Sugarloaf, she said, “Western Massachusetts has changed me. It’s so important to know where our food comes from.”