Smallholders harvest low yields and are in poverty and food insecurity. Their farms are too small, they have limited inputs, knowledge, and access to markets. Raising their yields is how they secure food and escape poverty. This we say.
Yet every farmer, large or small, responds on a PPF of their own, producing the best output their tradeoffs allow. This too we know.
Science defines a potential for every crop: a ceiling set by the best available seed and agronomy for a given crop, land, and climate. Science advances both the potential and resilience of every crop. Across the economies where we work, average yields stay far below science's potential, for most crops, in most places, six decades in. This is in the record.
Economies where we work vary greatly in total farmland area. Land is distributed differently within each. In some, largeholders hold most of the farmland. In others, smallholders hold a significant share. In each, production tracks the land each holds, while the same low average yield holds across farm sizes. This is now in the record.
Large landholders and smallholders in those same economies growing the same crops produce at the same low average yields. Across crops, staples and non-staples, and across the best land and the worst, average yields stay far below science's potential. This we Question.
The average yield emerges from the accumulation of PPFs across the economy, not from any one farmer. The average yield of each crop speaks for all farmers in that economy, not just the smallest. This we Question.
Every farmer, large and small, produces at the best output their PPF allows. Where income is not visible, the best output on that frontier is a yield far lower than science's potential, on more land where more is available. That is not a farming choice. It is the PPF speaking. This we know.
In broad economies, farmers growing the same crops achieve yields near science's potential across all farm sizes. Large and small farmers alike push toward the ceiling science sets because the PPF carries them there. The average yield speaks for all farmers in those economies too. This is in the record.
Research trials achieve yields near science's potential in both narrow and broad economies. But farmers move toward yields near that potential only in the broad, where income is visible and the PPF carries them there. In the narrow, income is not visible and the PPF does not carry them there. This we see.
In niche crops and niche markets, farmers achieve high yields and high income even in the narrow. That is proof for science's potential, in the niche, but not the economy's. Such niches and niche crop value chains last only while they remain niches and supply stays below demand. The common boom and bust follows when they do not. This we see.
What differs between narrow and broad economies is not the crop, the land, or the farmer. It is whether income is visible. Where income is visible to the many, average yields move toward science's potential. Where it is not, average yields stay at the income ceiling, the best output the PPF allows. This we Question.
We have read low average yields and low incomes as smallholder problems for decades. As yields stay low or stagnate, the language around them continues to grow. Farmer behavior. Farmer bias. Risk aversion. Technology aversion. Mistrust. Nudge effects. Culture. Beliefs. Barriers to adoption. Ineffective extension. Knowledge gaps. Lack of skills. Market failure. Weak value chains. Randomized control trials. This we do.
Some are used to explain why producers do not adopt. Others are used to explain why markets do not perform. Still others are used to design interventions around both. Yet low average yields in a narrow economy are shared by large and small farmers alike. The average yield describes what holds across an economy. This we Question.
The average yield in a narrow economy is low for every farmer in it, not just the smallest. The average yield is the accumulated expression of what producers across an economy find worth doing on their PPFs. The average yield speaks for the whole economy all along, and for the income condition that holds them at the same low ceiling. This we Question.
So here is the Unquestion:
If large and small farmers share the same low average yield ceiling in a narrow economy, what does that tell us about what the low average yield is actually speaking for?
And if average yields move toward science's potential when income becomes visible across the economy, what does that tell us about what must be visible first?
If this Unquestion meets one you have carried quietly, this is the place to say it out loud, so we can see the clarity we already hold together.
The more we Unquestion, the more clarity we gain. The more we Unquestion now, the less future generations will have to.
We are not lost.
We simply avoid the turn.
Once we Unquestion, the direction is already clear.
Thank you for seeing.