衡量标准的演变：从影响到盈利
FarmWorks在过去五年中取得了显著的成就：支持了3,000名农民，为他们带来了六百万美元的直接收入，并每月阻止了50吨的食物浪费。然而，作为FarmWorks的CEO，我必须承认，这些曾经引以为傲的指标，如今已不再是我最关心的核心。我现在的首要关注点是公司的盈利能力。这并非背弃了我们的初衷，而是基于一个深刻的领悟：没有经济上的可持续性，任何气候倡议都无法长久。五年前，我们怀揣着在肯尼亚建立1,000个气候智能型、高产农场的宏伟目标，投入了水坝、防虫网室、滴灌和有机肥料等一切“书中自有”的气候解决方案。但当收获季来临，我们发现成箱的番茄因订单不足而腐烂，储藏室里堆满了洋葱。那一刻，我意识到，无论有多少气候解决方案，最终每个农民都必须面对一个根本问题：“谁会购买我的农产品，并为我的辛勤劳动和投资买单？”
Original English
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.农民的视角与项目的短暂性
这个关于财务可持续性的教训，在我几年前接待一位投资者时尤为深刻。投资者询问我们的农民：“你们觉得和FarmWorks合作得怎么样？”一位农民坦率地回答：“我们目前很喜欢。但你们看，每隔两年就会有一个新的组织带着新项目来找我们，两年后他们就消失了，所以我们得看看FarmWorks能持续多久。”这句话如同一记重锤，让我深感不安。这些农民早已习惯了无数的非政府组织（NGOs）、捐助者和初创公司带着宏伟的气候愿景和夸口承诺出现，却在资金枯竭时悄然离去。没有财务上的可持续性，我们FarmWorks也将在几个季度后不复存在。那一刻，我意识到，要实现FarmWorks的财务可持续性，我们必须能够卖出所有的农产品。
Original English
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. But you see, every two years, there is a new organization coming to us with a new project. They disappear after two years, so we will see how long FarmWorks can last." I felt my stomach drop in that moment. These farmers have gotten used to countless NGOs, donors, start-ups rolling in with grand climate visions, big promises, only to vanish when funding dries up. And without the financial sustainability, we, too, would be gone in just a few seasons. In that moment, finding financial sustainability for FarmWorks meant we had to sell all of our produce.拥抱市场：从“施予”到“交易”的转变
于是，我一头扎进了肯尼亚的蔬菜批发市场。清晨五点的马里基蒂（Marikiti），内罗毕市中心最大的批发市场之一，一片混乱。无数卖家争夺最佳摊位，顾客则在最高品质的番茄箱前你争我夺。作为中国人，我早已习惯了拥挤和竞争，但这简直是另一个层面的激烈。（笑声）我立刻意识到，我必须成为这场“激动人心”的博弈中的一员。我开始用卡车将番茄运往市场，第一天就被一位市场摊贩推倒在地，这绝非我所期待的欢迎方式。但多年过去，我学会了如何融入这个市场，理解了价格的真实运作机制，明白天气如何能在瞬间改变供需关系，并与市场上的女士们建立了深厚的友谊——她们中的许多人现在是我们的客户，自豪地售卖着FarmWorks的农产品。
通过对市场的深入理解，我们几乎能够售出所有的产品。事实上，我们发现仅靠我们自己的农场根本无法满足全部需求。毕竟，人们每天都需要进食，但没有哪个农民能一年365天都在收获。因此，我们决定与更多农民合作，起初是通过教授他们气候智能型技术。然而，令人惊讶的是，当我们向农民提供滴灌设备时，它们有时会被闲置。当我们展示更卫生的作物支撑结构时，他们依然沿用旧方法。我不得不承认，我们是在“强加解决方案”，而非真正“解决问题”。滴灌可以节水，但运行成本高昂；卫生的作物支撑结构可能预防疾病，但购买成本不菲。我们提供了知识，但没有提供真正的资本或有保障的回报。缺乏足够的经济激励，农民根本无力承担这些“好点子”。
因此，我们改变了策略。与其专注于培训，我们开始直接购买并分销农民的农产品，为他们提供真实的收入。接下来发生的事情更令我震惊：有了我们的收入支持，农民们开始主动投资于更好的实践、更优良的设备，投资于他们自己的农场。事实证明，正确的经济学比正确的知识更有力量。
Original English
So that's when I threw myself into Kenya's vegetable wholesale market. This is 5am at the Marikiti, one of the largest wholesale markets in downtown Nairobi. It was chaotic. So many sellers fighting for the best spot to sell. The customers are fighting for the highest-quality crate of tomatoes. And I'm Chinese, so I'm very much used to crowds and competition. But this was next level. (Laughter) I immediately knew I had to be part of this excitement. I started delivering tomatoes with our trucks to the markets, and on my first day, I got pushed down to the ground by a market vendor. Not exactly the welcome I was expecting. But over the years, I learned to be part of the market. I figured out how prices actually work, how weather can totally change supply and demand overnight, and made friends with the market ladies, many of them now our customers, proudly selling produce from FarmWorks. With the market figured out, we were able to sell almost everything. In fact, we realized that our own farms could never be enough to meet the full demand. In the end, people are eating every day of the year, but no farmer can be harvesting 365 days of the year. So we decided to partner with more farmers, starting by training them with climate-smart techniques. And this is what surprised me. When we give farmers drip irrigation kits, sometimes they sit unused. When we showed them the more hygienic crop-support structures, they were still using the same old method. It was hard to admit, but the reality is we were imposing solutions but not really solving problems. The drip irrigation could save water but costs fuel to operate. The more hygienic crop support structure might prevent disease but costs money to buy. We were providing knowledge, but not really capital or guaranteed returns. And without enough financial incentives, the farmers cannot really afford to implement those good ideas. So we changed our approach. Instead of focusing on training, we simply started buying and distributing the farmers' produce, and giving them a real income. What happened next shocked me even more, because with the income from us, the farmers actually started to invest in better practices, better equipment, investing in their own farms. So turns out the right economics was more powerful than the right knowledge.年轻人才的驱动力与梦想的实现
而且，你们知道吗？人们常说年轻人对农业不感兴趣，这完全是错的。肯尼亚的年轻人热爱农业，但他们更热爱的是一份体面的工作和一份体面的收入。在FarmWorks，超过80%的员工年龄在30岁以下，我们是一个由年轻人才组成的农业企业。多年来，我们已发展成为肯尼亚最大的蔬菜批发商之一。2024年，我们售出了1亿个番茄——这听起来很多，（笑声）（掌声）但如果仔细算算，这平均到肯尼亚每人头上还不到两个番茄。所以，我们仍有巨大的增长空间。
还记得我最初建造1,000个农场的梦想吗？它仍在实现，只是方式不同了。如今，农场不再由我们建造，而是由农民自己建造，因为他们最了解自己的土地和社区。凭借我们提供的稳定市场销路和持续收入，他们现在有能力投资自己的农场，并在需要时主动寻求我们的帮助。
Original English
And you know what else? Supposedly, young people are not very interested in agriculture. That is not true. Young people in Kenya love agriculture. But what they love even more is to have a decent job and earn a decent income. At FarmWorks, more than 80 percent of our employees are under the age of 30. We are an agriculture business made by young talent. Over the years, we have grown into one of the largest vegetable wholesalers in Kenya. In 2024, we sold 100 million tomatoes. That might sound like a lot. (Laughs) (Applause) Until you do the math. It's barely two tomatoes per person in Kenya. So we still have a lot of room to grow and a long way to go. And remember my original dream of building 1,000 farms. That is still being realized, but in a different way. Today, the farms are being built not by us but by the farmers, who know their own land and communities the best. With steady market uptake and consistent income from us, they are now able to invest in their own farms and reach out to us when they need help.经济可行性：可持续气候行动的基石
实现财务可持续性并非易事。在我们找到市场后的许多年里，公司一直在亏损。我不得不做出艰难的决定，关闭备受珍视的示范农场，暂停新的合作项目，甚至关闭那些因距离太远而难以服务的区域。事实证明，与花费相比，节省金钱真的非常困难。但我深知，我们生存并扩大影响力的唯一途径，就是找到财务上的可持续性。
如今，FarmWorks已是一家拥有健康利润和稳健增长的企业。我们雇佣了300多名员工，超过10,000名市场摊贩依赖我们提供日常供应。作为一名社会创业者，我从多年的实践中汲取了一个宝贵的教训：真正的可持续性，无论关乎气候还是其他方面，都必须源于经济。我并非主张牺牲环境而追求利润，而是深刻认识到，没有可行的经济模式，我们的气候项目和倡议就可能仅仅是昂贵的实验，而非真正可规模化的解决方案。
仔细想想：当农民获得收入时，他们就能投资于更好的实践；当企业实现盈利时，我们就能保护并扩大我们的影响力；当社区在经济上繁荣时，他们才有能力和意愿从长远角度关注他们的环境。因此，我的信息是：为了我们的气候，我们能做的最好的事情，就是建立经济上可行的解决方案。让经济先行。只有这样，我们才能真正解锁持久的气候影响。谢谢大家。（欢呼与掌声）
Original English
Finding financial sustainability was not easy. For years after finding our market, we were still bleeding money. I had to make difficult decisions of shutting down prized demonstration farms, halting new partnerships, even closing regions that were too far away for us to serve. Turns out it was really difficult to save money, compared to spending it. But I knew the only way for us to survive and grow our impact is through finding financial sustainability. Today, we're a business with healthy margins and growth. More than 300 employees work for us, and more than 10,000 market vendors rely on us for their daily supplies. The hard lesson I learned from the years of being a social entrepreneur is that real sustainability, climate or otherwise, must come from economics first. I'm not talking about choosing profit over planet, but I have recognized that without a viable economics, our climate projects and initiatives might remain as expensive experiments but not really scalable solutions. Think about it. When farmers earn an income, they can invest in better practices. When companies achieve profitability, we can protect and scale our impact. When communities prosper economically, they're able and can afford to care about their environment in the long term. So here is my message. The best thing we can do for our climate is to build economically viable solutions. Let there be economics first. Then, and only then, can we unlock real, lasting climate impact. Thank you. (Cheers and applause)📌 文中提及的人物和组织
公司/组织: FarmWorks