Rowe is a veteran of nearly 30 U.S. government-sponsored trips to developing countries, including Egypt, China and Zimbabwe to help promote new agricultural techniques.

Farmers in Bamiyan, an ancient village on the Silk Road that spent 1,500 years in the shadow of two huge Buddha statues before they were dynamited by the Taliban in 2001, had no efficient way to store potatoes following their harvest, leading to drastic food-price increases and shortages.

"When the harvest is on, there's a glut," Rowe said. "If they could store them there, they can double or triple their money. "I was told once they were built, price of potatoes doubled as soon as harvest was over. If you had enough of those sheds built, it would make more food available to people at a reasonable price."

Afghanistan has seen a spiraling heroin trade and resurgent violence, even as the U.S. and NATO have poured thousands of new troops into the country. Last year, more than 8,000 people were killed in insurgency-related attacks, and violence has claimed more than 1,500 lives this year.

Still, Rowe said he felt safe in wintry Bamiyan, where he remembers there was a skiff of snow on the ground, the surrounding mountains were bleak and bare, and his 45-minute return flight to Kabul was delayed for days by storms.

"It was colder than hell," he remembers. "It was just plumb uncomfortable."

Winning a mention from Laura Bush is a sign that Rowe's root cellars accomplished what he'd intended.

"Just the fact that somebody in Bamiyan remembered," he said. "Something went on good there. The people are good people. The folks I worked with, I'd swim the Snake River for them."