Brewing a solution to climate change: coffee meets agroforestry | Willy Foote | TEDxBoston

NOTE FROM TED: This talk only represents the speaker's personal business approach to and understanding of regenerative agriculture. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/t... Research tells us that due to climate change, about 50% of current coffeelands will be unable to grow coffee within this century. While that’s bad news for the 66% of Americans who drink at least two cups of coffee a day, it’s disastrous for the 12.5 million farmers worldwide whose livelihoods depend on the crop. Drawing from ancient agricultural techniques long practiced by rural and Indigenous communities in the Global South, Root Capital Founder and CEO Willy Foote demonstrates how agroforestry and similar regenerative agricultural practices can help reverse decades of global biological degeneration. Willy argues that the global community must reframe our understanding of the climate crisis, which is currently viewed through the lens of big government and bigger corporations. Instead, Willy argues that we must view the crisis through the lens of the people on the frontlines who hold the keys to unlocking nature-based solutions: smallholder farmers. Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit that offers farmers around the world a path to prosperity by investing in the agricultural businesses that serve as engines of impact in their communities. Root Capital provides these businesses with the capital, training, and access to markets they need in order to grow, thrive, and create opportunities for thousands of farmers at a time. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has provided more than $1.7 billion in loans to 770 agricultural businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together, these businesses have bought and marketed crops for 2.4 million smallholder farmers, reaching over 10 million people in rural communities. Willy is a Skoll Entrepreneur and an Ashoka Global Fellow. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008, one of Forbes’ “Impact 30” in 2011, and was a 2012 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He served for nearly a decade on the Executive Committee of the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), and serves on the Strategic Advisory Council of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. Willy holds an MS in development economics from the London School of Economics and a BA from Yale University. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx