Ever since she first came to Iowa State, Amber Herman has had a passion to improve food quality and safety.

Herman, senior in public service and administration in agriculture, will head to the eastern African nation of Uganda in February, where she plans on spending the semester working with farmers, offering advice on food security and improving crop yields. She is scheduled to return to the United States in May.

Herman said she would be spending the first portion of her trip working with the nonprofit organization Volunteer Efforts for Development Concern, to better learn how the native Ugandans are pursuing development. She will also be learning Luganda, a language spoken among the Ugandan people.

The last six weeks of Herman’s trip are to be spent working on her research project with the Iowa State Center of Sustainable Rural Livelihood.

The mission for Herman is to help small-scale farmers between the ages of 18 and 24 to be able to provide food for their families and local markets.

“The reason I’m choosing younger farmers is because 50 percent of the population is under the age of 15,” Herman said.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the median age of a Ugandan citizen is 14.8 years old, compared to 36 years old in the United States.

This is not the first trip to Africa for Herman – she traveled to Kenya in 2003.

While in Kenya, Herman said she was able to see the vision the people of Kenya have for their country.

The Kenyan people know what they want their country to look like, but need help getting to that point, she said.

“While I was in Kenya I recognized the need for people who study [food] policy to know the field,” Herman said.

Herman chose Uganda as her research field for the semester because she gets to take seminar courses at Makerere University in the capital city of Kampala during the first half of her trip, and the second half is to be spent working on the research project she designs.

Herman’s father, Robert, said her family fully supports her trip to Uganda.

“For our family, it is not that unusual at this point in time,” he said. “Our opinions and feelings about [studies abroad] are not that radical.”

Robert said he is excited that she will make an impact on other parts of the world.

Herman said her plans include earning her master’s and doctorate degrees and working for the International Food Policy Research Institute or Oxfam International.