Place-Based Metrics

Makaliʻi Metrics LLC

Place-Based Metrics

Merging Indigenous innovation and modern analytics to drive climate-resilient agriculture and soil regeneration across Hawaiʻi’s diverse landscapes.

Honolulu, HI, USA

United States

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Hawaiʻi once sustained nearly a million people through regenerative, place-based agriculture. Today, the state imports nearly 90% of its food and faces deep climate vulnerability across its agricultural systems. Plantation-era extraction left behind degraded soils, abandoned lands, and fractured relationships between people and place. Between 2017 and 2022, Hawaiʻi lost 10.4% of its farms—more than 700 operations—according to the 2024 USDA Census. Small farms saw a 13% decline. Despite nearly half the land being zoned for agriculture, only a fraction is in production. Farmers, conservationists, and cultural practitioners are working to restore these lands—but without local infrastructure for soil analysis, their work is slowed and siloed. Most soil, plant, and water samples must be shipped thousands of miles to continental labs, separating climate response efforts from Hawaiʻi’s environmental realities. This lack of localized data infrastructure limits the ability to track soil carbon, test adaptive practices, or verify ecosystem services—key strategies for climate mitigation and resilience. Makaliʻi Metrics addresses this by building culturally grounded, place-based analytics systems that combine ancestral knowledge with tools like spectroscopy and machine learning, enabling communities to respond to climate threats with data-informed action.

Makaliʻi Metrics provides climate-smart agricultural analytics rooted in Hawaiʻi’s unique environmental conditions. Our solution enables farmers, conservationists, and policymakers to make better decisions with faster, place-based insights. We are establishing a local analytical headquarters to replace the need for off-island lab services, eliminating shipping-related delays, regulatory hurdles, and emissions. This facility provides timely, affordable access to soil, water, tissue, and compost analyses—tools essential for monitoring carbon, improving fertility, and supporting regenerative practices. Our digital platform translates complex lab data into intuitive, actionable reports. Users can visualize environmental changes over time, track outcomes from field trials, and inform climate-resilient management. All samples are processed using traditional extraction methods and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy. We have developed a machine learning model trained specifically on Hawaiʻi’s diverse soils to accurately predict organic carbon—an essential climate mitigation metric. As we expand our regional dataset, we will build additional models to assess other soil health indicators. We integrate place-based knowledge and land-use history into our platform, creating a layered tool that supports both ecosystem restoration and climate data reporting. Our goal is to make climate adaptation more locally informed, measurable, and accessible for those stewarding the land.

Makaliʻi Metrics serves farmers, conservationists, and cultural practitioners across Hawaiʻi who are on the front lines of climate adaptation. These land stewards often face the dual challenge of degraded soils and limited access to timely, affordable agricultural data—especially data relevant to soil carbon, water quality, and regenerative potential. By providing locally grounded soil, water, compost, and crop tissue analysis, we equip users with tools to manage land more efficiently, reduce inputs, and adapt to shifting climate conditions. Our data platform helps users track changes over time, enabling more resilient decision-making and verification of practices like cover cropping, compost use, and agroforestry. We also work with Indigenous cultural stewards restoring food systems rooted in climate-smart practices that evolved in harmony with Hawaiʻi’s ecosystems. These efforts regenerate soil, rebuild watershed health, and preserve traditional knowledge critical to long-term resilience. Our work supports communities typically excluded from centralized ag tech and climate data systems. By building local capacity, we’re developing new leadership in this space. We align with state policy goals such as doubling local food production by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 through practical, place-based implementation.