harvestcentered

Harvest-centered is a policy, management, and design concept that places the harvest outcome at the center of planning. The term is sometimes written as harvestcentered. It is used across sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and biomass supply chains to emphasize yields, biomass, or food production as primary objective while considering sustainability.

In agriculture, harvest-centered planning translates into decisions about crop selection, planting dates, pest management, and post-harvest handling aimed at maximizing usable yield and market value while maintaining soil health and biodiversity.

In resource sectors, it informs harvest policies and quotas that seek to balance immediate yield with replenishment rates and ecosystem services.

Core principles include aligning incentives with long-term productivity, integrating local knowledge, and using data and indicators to guide decisions. It often emphasizes resilience to climate variability and supply shocks.

Critics warn that a narrow focus on harvest can neglect non-harvest values like biodiversity, cultural traditions, or distributional equity, and may risk overharvest without proper safeguards. Effective implementation typically couples harvest-centered goals with sustainability safeguards and governance.

Relation to other concepts: overlaps with sustainable intensification, regenerative agriculture, and yield-based decision making, but remains distinct for its explicit centering on harvest outcomes across scales and sectors.