A record total harvest sounds like unambiguous good news, but total yield alone says little about how those gains are distributed among smallholders versus large landholders.
National harvest figures are usually reported as a single aggregate number, which can mask sharply uneven outcomes between regions, farm sizes, and access to irrigation or credit.
A handful of local cooperatives already track distribution alongside yield, publishing simple breakdowns of how gains are spread across their membership rather than just a total tonnage figure.
That kind of disaggregated reporting is more work, but it’s also more honest, and it would let policymakers target support at the farmers actually being left behind by an otherwise good season.
The next big harvest headline is only a season away. It would be worth asking, this time, who exactly is benefiting from it.
