More than 500 million smallholder farmers produce one third of the world’s food supply. Billions have been invested in efforts to support these farmers— including from corporations who increasingly claim to be ‘doing good’ in their supply chains.
We’ve seen a proliferation of frameworks and certification schemes to guide and monitor farmer programs, but most are too complex or resource intensive to be scaled and do not incorporate the farmer’s own perspective. Further, each framework is different, making comparability impossible. Farmers and programs are overwhelmed with data collection initiatives, yet simultaneously we lack insights into how farmers are truly faring.
60 Decibels developed the Farmer Thriving Index as a simple, standardized tool for measuring farmer wellbeing, because we believe that impact measurement should be easy and powered by farmer voice. We also believe that if the sector can consistently measure and compare where, why and how farmers are thriving or merely surviving, we will more effectively address the challenges they face.
We launched the Index in cocoa supply chains in West Africa, and from 2023-2024, we piloted the tool with more than 3,000 coffee farmers in East Africa with the support of Small Foundation. At a high-level, we set out to test if we could shift how an industry thinks about farmer wellbeing, with the goal of building momentum with a critical mass of sector leaders by offering a subsidized lean data study.
Our collective vision is to encourage sectors that source from smallholders–to listen directly to farmers about their own wellbeing. To this end, this document summarizes learnings from this large-scale pilot, other small pilots in different contexts, and industry feedback to recommend how the Farmer Thriving Index can be used. It provides a scalable tool— adapted over two years to incorporate our learnings— and ways in which the industry can use the tool as part of their broader farmer data ecosystem.
The Farmer Thriving Index measures farmer wellbeing across four dimensions grounded in the farmer’s own perspectives. It is a short, easy-to-implement survey. The tool is standardized, making it applicable to a farmer in any context or value chain, and making the results comparable across different populations.
Do farmers have access to the elements of a decent standard of living?
> Education
> Clean water and sanitation
> Reliable healthcare
> Adequate and safe housing
Are farmers resilient to shocks or stresses?
> Access to emergency funds
> Savings behavior
> Access to enabling services
> Resilient agronomic practices
Do farmers perceive their livelihood as viable?
> Perceived profitability
> Fair purchase price
> Investment in farm
> Livelihood longevity
> Intergenerational outlook
How food secure are farmer households?
> Reduced Coping Strategy Index (rCSI)
