Catherine Nakalembe

They have to then dry it, and then they have to weigh it.

And there's a whole records-keeping process.

And in that process, not only will you

Interact with the farmer, the person who does the dishelling, the one who will harvest the cacao.

You will talk to a company that works with them, buys cacao from them, the person who fixes the tractors that help them carry things.

You will experience the fact that when it rains, you literally have to take off your shoes and walk for like a whole kilometer to get to a place where you could just drive.

And then you experience the fact that because the weather is so unpredictable, the drying process of cacao is so painful.

But you don't want it to get wet because that ruins the value.

And so it's like all of these things that I wouldn't otherwise have access to if all I did was map tree loss.

You know, think about it as deforestation.

I wouldn't be able to see that.

Yeah.

This is a really good question.

For me, what I think is, it's more about the why we're doing it.

What is valued in academia versus...

what will be valued on the ground, sometimes completely different things, right?

It's okay to develop models, to publish papers, to create platforms, to measure everything the best possible way.

That is okay.

It is not okay to say that we are very good at measuring this and this is how it's going to help 10 million farmers.

somewhere on the continent of Africa or Asia.