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Across global agri-food supply chains, sustainability teams face growing pressure to move beyond ambition and demonstrate real impact: How are companies supporting equitable livelihoods in practice, not just in principle? New regulations such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) are pushing businesses to take more responsibility for what happens at the start of their chains. This means finding concrete ways to support smallholder incomes, improve data quality, and strengthen long-term supply relationships. The Farmer Income Data Toolkit helps you do just that. Co-developed by Fairfood and Akvo, the toolkit is a core component of a broader Living Income Commodity Strategy jointly designed by Fairfood, Akvo, and Heifer International. This collaborative strategy aims to advance living income action in sectors where certification is limited and systemic inefficiencies persist. It equips supply chain actors with the evidence and approaches needed to make informed, fairer decisions. You can read more about the overarching strategy in the Living Income Commodity Strategy White Paper. This technical toolkit is your starting point for putting this strategy in practice by measuring farmer income and identifying the minimum income required for a viable, resilient livelihood. It provides a step-by-step approach to gathering and analysing robust data, so you can move from insight to action with clarity and intention. What sets this toolkit apart is its segmentation-based approach. Rather than treating smallholder communities as a single, uniform group, the toolkit enables you to uncover and explore key differences across farmer profiles. This added layer of analysis allows for more nuanced and targeted interventions that are grounded in real-world complexity, and tailored to performance, potential and context. The toolkit is the culmination of a five-year programme funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The programme focused on testing and developing models that promote fairer value distribution as a foundation for resilient, inclusive, and ultimately more sustainable supply chains. In response, this Toolkit offers an end-to-end approach: from identifying income gaps to segment farmer realities, and support evidence-based decision making across supply chains.

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A data-led approach to living income action

At its core, our joint approach combines two complementary methodologies:
  1. Living Income Price (LIP). Calculates a price floor that enables a decent standard of living for producers, whether at farmgate, cooperative, or Free-on-Board (FOB) level. By comparing current prices with a living income benchmark, it reveals how far the supply chain must move.
  2. Cost-Yield Efficiency (CYE). Price alone rarely closes the gap, and that’s where the CYE assessment comes in. This analysis classifies farmers by both costs and yields, highlighting who is efficient, who is struggling, and why. This dual lens identifies where cost saving, productivity, or diversification measures might help - and where pricing interventions are really unavoidable.
Used together, these tools allow companies and their partners to identify income gaps with precision, and to design realistic interventions that are grounded in local data and developed in collaboration with producers. Put simply, this is a practical roadmap for informed decision making and more effective investment in agri-food supply chains. Based on traceable, locally sourced data, the approach outlines the steps in identifying and costing solutions for more equitable value distribution, shifting the conversation from compliance to collaboration. Instead of asking producers to report, it enables them to understand and use their data. This toolkit guides you through the first step of that journey. It helps you calculate a fair and transparent price that supports a living income, and it also lays the groundwork for the next phase:developing practical, data-informed solutions through collective action with local stakeholders. Whether you work in a corporate sustainability team, a producer organisation, an NGO, or a certification body, this toolkit is designed to help turn living income ambitions into actionable, fundable, and implementable strategies.