You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

Today's talk is part of our new 2025 TED Fellows films adapted for podcasts just for our TED Talks Daily listeners.

We'll be releasing these special episodes showcasing our amazing fellows on certain Fridays

throughout the rest of 2025 and into the new year. So stay tuned.

The TED Fellows program supports a network of global innovators and we're so excited to share

their work with you. Today, we'd like you to meet the satellite food security specialist, Catherine Nacolembe.

It might be hard to imagine how satellites orbiting in space can help farmers tending to the

soil on Earth.

But for Catherine, who uses satellite technology and machine learning to monitor smallholder

farming, this connection is essential. She shares how satellites

can play a vital role in helping to feed the world, and why even with her bird's eye view,

a grounded bottom-up approach to supporting farmers is just as key. As she puts it, true innovation

isn't about high-tech systems, but about making technology fit the problem.

After we hear from Catherine, stick around for her conversation with Ted Fellows program director,

Lily James Olds.

If farming was your primary source of income, and if you can't grow anything, there's not much you can do.

It's very demoralizing. It's very overwhelming.

A lot of the countries where I work, farmers face fires, pests, diseases, droughts, and floods.

If crops fail, no food is available for a lot of people who depend on what they produce.

It translates into, you know, sometimes an entire generation being undermined.

My name is Catherine Nakalember and I'm a satellite food security specialist.

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