Developing the Income Driver Calculator and Toolkit for Better Incomes for IDH

To help close the living income gap for smallholder farmers, IDH partnered with Akvo to develop the Income Driver Calculator (IDC) - a user-friendly, web-based tool that enables companies to make data-driven decisions in their supply chains. The IDC uses aggregate data to assess income gaps, model intervention scenarios, and set income targets for different farmer segments. Since the IDC's launch, the partnership has grown into Akvo's ongoing role as development partner for IDH's full Toolkit for Better Incomes - a suite of practical, data-driven tools helping companies take smarter, more targeted action on farmer income across their supply chains.


Partners

IDH


Sector

Agriculture


Services

App development

The challenge

Smallholder farmers, who produce a third of the world's food, are crucial to global agriculture but face numerous challenges, including limited access to resources and vulnerability to climate and market changes. This not only deepens poverty but also threatens food security and exacerbates inequalities.

Companies sourcing from these farmers must play a key role in supporting their sustainability. However, many are falling short, with only 4% of over 2,000 global companies taking meaningful steps to address living income gaps, according to the 2023 Food and Agriculture Benchmark. The main barrier is a lack of data-driven insights to develop targeted interventions. To tackle this, companies need innovative tools to provide the actionable data required for effective solutions. IDH introduced the Income Driver Calculator (IDC) to tackle Living Income challenges. The previous version of the IDC estimated income dynamics, visualised income gaps, and provided benchmark data, but faced limitations such as individual farmer data, price volatility, and usability issues.

The solution

Akvo has been IDH's development partner for the IDC since June 2023, leading the work from the ground up: defining user profiles and requirements through co-design workshops, developing and refining a prototype, and building the tool iteratively with user testing at every stage. With an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, users can create scenarios to understand the contribution of different income drivers in closing the living income gap, through data analysis and visualisation. The tool also supports companies in defining and monitoring programme-specific income targets for different farmer segments.

Above: The IDC platform

Following the IDC's early success, the partnership expanded significantly. Akvo became the development partner for IDH's full Toolkit for Better Incomes, contributing across several tools in the suite:

  • The Income Driver Calculator, described above, remains the centrepiece of the toolkit.
  • Akvo designed and developed the Procurement Library, which supports companies in identifying best-practice interventions aligned with their goals, featuring a self-assessment function, a curated interventions library, and intuitive filtering.
  • For the Cocoa Income Inventory, Akvo designed and built the underlying data model and developed the Power BI dashboard that enables interactive exploration of cocoa production and income data across origins, structured around the CHIS methodology.
  • Akvo also contributed to the Income Measurement Guidance Tool, which supports companies in streamlining their approach to measuring actual household income across commodities and regions.

The impact

The collaboration between IDH and Akvo has made significant strides in addressing living income gaps for smallholder farmers. By providing companies with aggregate data and actionable insights, the IDC empowers businesses to assess the size of the income gap in their supply chains and make informed decisions on the most effective interventions. With its user-friendly interface, the tool enables companies to model scenarios, analyse the impact of various income drivers, and track progress towards specific income targets for different farmer segments.

As the partnership has grown into the wider Toolkit for Better Incomes, that same data-driven approach now extends across procurement decisions, cocoa-sector income data, and income measurement practices — helping close the living income gap, driving positive change for smallholder farmers, and promoting more sustainable and equitable agricultural supply chains.