Internship Reflection | Meg Sandy

My name is Meg Sandy and this year it was my pleasure to intern at the Minor Use Foundation. My position began in March 2023 and was completed in August 2023 granting me five months with the Foundation. The experience provided me with an abundance of knowledge on the minor use industry and how vital international trade is to many of the fruits and vegetables in the American diet. It also was an amazing introduction to the pesticide and biopesticide industries. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn from the organization’s team and work alongside them to help communicate with the public about the unique role the Minor Use Foundation plays in the lives of international growers, as well as their impact on international trade and diets.

My first assignment was to launch the Foundation’s LinkedIn page. This was an engaging challenge for me as I had never managed a social media page larger than my own. I worked on drafting posts, reaching out to people in the industry and agricultural community to grow followers and engagement, and did my best to make the page visually and aesthetically pleasing to those who may come across it.

Ultimately this transformed into an incredible opportunity in growing my own network alongside the Minor Use Foundation, and I met some very impressive people along the way. I was happy to hear on my final team call that one of the connections I had met and messaged with was in contact with the MUF to propose a potential partnership in Bangladesh. Aside from LinkedIn, I often worked on data collection for the MUF, because it can be difficult to find data on just minor use trade, but the numbers are critical in demonstrating the impact of the Foundation. These searches taught me so much about international trade and how to interpret data, as well as how to relay it to others. I designed small infographics so the information could be shared. Developing materials to teach others was a very effective way to ensure I understood all that I was learning.

Banana
Fruit fly
Colombia

Project Impact Potential:

$892 million

Coffee
Coffee Borer Beetle
Uganda

Project Impact Potential:

$862 million

Reflecting on my time at the Minor Use Foundation, I now have a deeper and significantly more complex understanding of the regulation of pesticides and its relationship with trade, but also the global agricultural industry. I was continually impressed by the MUF team and their devotion to the impact of the Foundation and am excited to continue to watch their projects grow.