Step 2 – Measuring: Identify the living income benchmark

Living income benchmarks are designed to raise awareness about income needs of farming households and to provide a goal for strategies and collective efforts to raise farmer incomes. Combined with actual income data, they can be used to understand the income gap and to inform intervention strategies. Living income benchmarks differ from national poverty lines, where the latter generally focuses on basic needs baskets while the former emphasises a basic but decent standard of living.  

Specialised research organisations use transparent, practical methodologies to produce independent, credible living income benchmarks, which vary in their geographic specificity. The IDH Income Toolkit hosts an interactive tool to help companies find credible living income benchmarks. In instances where a benchmark is not available for a given context, existing benchmarks in the same geography can be adjusted for household composition and inflation. 

If a new benchmark needs to be commissioned, there are multiple stakeholders to consider to support your efforts by data sharing, data validation and/or facilitating the process. These stakeholders (including producing governments, certifiers, traders, buyers, and academic or non-profit institutions) can also pool financial resources to commission benchmark studies.