Food systems play a complex role in climate change. 1. They are the cause of about 30% of emissions. 2. They are also very vulnerable to weather events caused due to climate change and 3. Farming can also be a solution to sequester carbon at scale. There are many solutions that can combine these realities into a net positive outcome - sustainable farming that is resistant to climate change, increases farm income AND sequesters carbon. None of these solutions have scaled significantly so far.

When we look at smallholder farmers (who constitute 80% of farmers in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa), markets have only looked at them as "beneficiaries" and not as a part of the solution. By putting smallholder farmers first and thinking of them as innovators, Kheyti has proven that high tech sustainable agriculture can be democratised. Kheyti's Greenhouse-in-a-Box has grown from just over 1,300 installations in 2023 to nearly 6,000 by 2025, with farmers' median income from the greenhouses more than doubling over that same period - proof that this model doesn't just work, it scales. This talk will explore the solutions sustainable agriculture offers to climate change and how changing the narrative on smallholder farmers is key to achieving those solutions.

About the speaker

Kaushik has spent over 15 years improving livelihoods in rural India. He is the Cofounder and CEO of Kheyti, an organisation helping smallholder farmers through its "Greenhouse-in-a-Box", a low-cost greenhouse bundled with services that increases farmers' incomes, protects those incomes from climate risk and helps farmers grow more sustainably.

Before launching Kheyti, Kaushik was a leadership team member of B-ABLE, a social enterprise that provides high quality training and placement services to rural school dropouts. He is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur and has an MBA from Columbia Business School. Kaushik is a winner of the prestigious EarthShot Prize and the Elevate Prize, and Kheyti was just named the 2026 grand prize winner of the Lipman Family Prize at Wharton. He is an Acumen India Fellow and a DRK Foundation Entrepreneur.