At the World Cup, play stops for hydration breaks. Who protects the people who grow our food?
When temperatures soar at the FIFA World Cup, the response is immediate. Referees pause the match for hydration breaks. Medics stand ready on the sidelines. Sports scientists monitor players’ heart rates, body temperatures, and physical performance in real time.
The heat is taken seriously because these athletes matter.
But beyond the stadium, another group of people spends long hours under the same sun.
In Tanzania, more than 70% of the workforce earns a living through agriculture. Every day, millions of farmers work outdoors, often during the hottest hours of the day. Unlike professional athletes, there are no scheduled breaks, no medical teams on standby, and no sophisticated monitoring systems keeping track of how extreme heat affects their bodies.
Just heat.
And the growing risks that come with it.
A Hidden Health Challenge
As global temperatures continue to rise, heat is becoming one of the greatest health threats facing people who work outdoors.
Prolonged exposure can lead to dehydration, heat exhaustion, fatigue, kidney injury, and cardiovascular strain. Yet despite the scale of the challenge, surprisingly little research has measured how farmers actually experience heat while working in their own fields.
Most global heat models rely on weather station data or satellite imagery. While valuable, these methods cannot fully capture the conditions farmers experience on the ground, where shade, soil moisture, vegetation, and land management can dramatically influence local temperatures.
To better understand this reality, we needed to measure heat where it matters most.
Measuring Heat Where Farmers Work
This is the focus of KISHADE – a research project funded by the Wellcome Trust and implemented by LEAD Foundation in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and MetaMeta.
The project combines cutting-edge technology with community-based research to better understand how climate change affects the health of farmers in Tanzania.
Farmers participating in the study wear biometric monitors similar to those used by elite athletes. These devices continuously record core body temperature and heart rate throughout the working day.
At the same time, drones, environmental sensors, and field measurements map the microclimate across farms, creating a detailed picture of how temperature varies within agricultural landscapes.
By combining physiological data with environmental measurements, researchers can better understand how different farming environments influence heat exposure and human health.
Can Trees Protect Farmers?
At the heart of the research lies one important question:
Can restoring trees through Kisiki Hai help protect farmers from extreme heat in a warming world?
Kisiki Hai, also known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), restores trees by protecting and managing living tree stumps that already exist beneath the soil. As trees return to the landscape, they provide much more than biodiversity and carbon storage.
They create shade.
They reduce ground temperatures.
They improve soil moisture.
They influence the local microclimate.
KISHADE is investigating whether these ecological benefits also translate into measurable health benefits for the people working beneath those trees.
One of the First Studies of Its Kind
The scale of the research reflects its ambition.
- 550 farmers
- 50 villages across the Dodoma Region
- One of the first studies of its kind anywhere in the world
By combining restoration science, climate science, and public health, KISHADE is helping generate evidence that could shape how communities adapt to rising temperatures across dryland regions.
Looking Beyond the Stadium
Elite athletes deserve protection from extreme heat.
So do the people who feed the world.
As climate change continues to intensify, protecting farmers will require more than resilience. It will require evidence, innovation, and nature-based solutions that improve both ecosystems and human health.
The world watches the athletes.
We’re watching the people who grow its food.
KISHADE is funded by the Wellcome Trust and implemented by LEAD Foundation in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and MetaMeta.
