The Missing Piece in Climate Action (It’s Not What You Think) | Yi Li | TED

3,000 farmers supported. Six million dollars in direct income to farmers.

50 tons of food waste prevented every month.

These numbers represent FarmWorks’s impact over the last five years.

But what if I tell you they are no longer the most important metrics to me anymore?

Today, the number one metric that I care about as CEO of FarmWorks is our profitability.

Now before you judge me and think, "How did we let this capitalist on the stage?" hear me out.

Five years ago, I cofounded FarmWorks with the grand mission to build 1,000 climate-smart, highly productive farms across Kenya.

We invested in water dams, net houses, drip irrigation, organic fertilizers.

We had every right climate solution by the book.

But then, harvest time came, and I realized, when walking into our grading shed, there were crates of tomatoes rotting away because we didn't have enough orders.

Our storage room was bursting with onions.

It looks almost funny, but I was standing there, thinking, "Great, now what?" At the end of the day, every farmer has to answer one question: "Who is going to buy my produce and pay for all my hard work and investment?" Without the financial outcomes, climate initiatives cannot sustain themselves.

This lesson hit me particularly hard a few years ago during one of our investor visits.

The investor asked our group of farmers, "So how do you like working with FarmWorks so far?" One farmer said, "Yeah, we like them a lot so far.