You would think distributing seed would be relatively straightforward. You buy 1 tonne of seed and if you give 10kg to each farmer than you give seed to 100 farmers. Well, not exactly. First, a couple of those bags of seed are bound to get caught on the corner of the truck somewhere and start hemorrhaging slowly. Next, once the bag is open and the seed is being portioned out there is bound to be some spillage there. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the standard measure in rural Haiti is the marmite, not the kilogram. One marmite is approximately equal to 5 lbs. Unless you are in Fonds Verrettes where a marmite is equal to 6 lbs. Or in certain markets where a marmite is 7lbs. Plus a marmite is typically a recycled metal can of a standard size as pictured below. You can see that depending on who is filling the marmite, that the final seed weight could easily vary by 5 or 10%.

None of this is so big a deal until you start dealing in several tonnes of seed (35 tonnes and counting in our case). By the time you add up those little losses here and there, it ends up being hundreds of kgs. The photo below should explain.

I should acknowledge the possibility for the doubters (myself included) that the seed loss might be explained by a few bags 'escaping' from the back of the delivery truck and falling into the hands of not-quite-so-honest community leaders or other individuals of dubious distinction. Although this is not totally out of the question, the probability is low, since so many people are involved in the delivery process from beginning to end, that it would be extremely difficult for someone to walk away with a 50 kg bag without being noticed. Numerous other shady scenarios are possible: it is known that in some countries, emergency aid has been diverted by armed groups and sold to buy weapons for example. Helping people is just so complicated...