My name’s Isabelle and I’ll soon be working with ISCA for 6 months in Terrier-Rouge, Haiti as a Value-Chain and Agri-Business Coordinator. Essentially this will entail contributing to ISCA’s new poultry enterprise project by working with farmers to look for new potential markets for their products, help come up with a sustainable production value chain model, and train them on business concepts like financial record-keeping.
Prior to this I completed my bachelor’s degree in international development and a master’s in development management, and I’ve had the opportunity to live or work in Germany, South Korea, Nicaragua, Malawi, and the UK. I’m incredibly excited to get started on this position since my background is in food security and agricultural development in developing countries – I’ve previously worked on food security policy and programming at NGOs and governmental agencies, and my master’s dissertation was a gender analysis of agribusiness and mining industries’ policies and practices concerning land rights.
I’ve always found our relationships with food as a source of nourishment and income fascinating. Especially in the current context where small-scale farmers’ valuable role in global food security is increasingly being recognized, I think this position could be a great opportunity for me to gain insight into the challenges and opportunities that farmers of Haiti face.
I’m looking forward to getting to know Haiti up close and personal while gaining valuable field experience in the area that I’ve been interested in for so long, in addition to exploring the wonders of the Caribbean cuisine!