While global farm policy obsesses over land, capital and climate, it still ignores the health of the person behind the plough. The world’s agricultural debates have acquired an oddly abstract quality. Ministers and leaders argue over climate finance, development banks model productivity curves, and economists refine forecasts for food security. Yet the central figure in agriculture - the farmer - often disappears into the spreadsheet. This omission is one reason why so many w

The economics of agricultural trade has rested on a convenient assumption that labour is a factor of production, much like land or capital. Workers appear in equations as an ‘input,’ their contribution measured largely through productivity and wages. Yet in the fields of the developing world, where agriculture remains intensely dependent on human effort, this abstraction obscures a costly reality. Farmers are not inexhaustible resources. Their health is an economic asset and