The Living Income Community of Practice defines a living income as the net annual income required for a household in a particular place to afford a decent standard of living for all its members. This encompasses essential needs such as food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing, and provision for unexpected events. This concept emphasizes not just survival but enabling households to thrive economically and socially. It is important because it enables producers to break the cycle of poverty and invest in their future to improve their resilience. 

Achieving a living income is challenging but not impossible. It involves collaboration to develop targeted solutions that are adapted to the local context. Strategies are needed at multiple levels to address the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and the multiple barriers that small-scale producers face. 

Businesses, NGOs and governments can all contribute to reducing the income gap. Strategies can include training and capacity building of producers, investing in sustainable production practices, enabling producers to diversify their incomes, improving procurement practices, adapting contracting agreements, developing programmes to support adaptation to climate change, sharing the costs of mitigation strategies and developing government and sector policies that are inclusive and equitable. 

As a co-founder of the Living Income Community of Practice, ISEAL collaborates closely with Sustainable Food Lab and GIZ to convene and support an alliance of partners dedicated to enhancing smallholder farmers' livelihoods. Our collective efforts focus on:

• Enhancing understanding of living income measurement and identifying income gaps.
• Developing and discussing strategies to bridge these income disparities.
• Facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration among stakeholders.

ISEAL's role within the community includes advancing progress on improving producer livelihoods by developing guidance, showcasing best practices, and providing cross-sector examples. Additionally, ISEAL serves as the secretariat for the Living Income Community of Practice, coordinating activities and fostering collaboration among subscribers (the community of practice currently has a reach of over 3000 subscribers in across 111 countries). ISEAL also works on the broader enabling environment and the necessary conditions to support sustainable production by small scale producers through our work with our members, policy makers and the business community.

Read more about the Living Income Community of Practice.

We are working with our members to strengthen their systems to get the right data and develop the right methodology to measure their impact. We are providing particular guidance on identifying under-represented groups, such as small-scale producers who are often marginalised and not included or only partially included in scheme activities and monitoring. This programme of work gives sustainability systems a framework to help deliver on the ISEAL Code and is equally applicable to other initiatives looking to measure progress and impact of their engagement with small scale producers.

Achieving a living income is a complex, long-term endeavor that necessitates collaborative efforts across multiple actors and strategies. Recognizing this, ISEAL, in partnership with technical experts and practitioners, is engaging and building out a greater understanding on this topic to better assist companies and stakeholders in making credible claims regarding living income. This initiative aligns with growing consumer expectations and forthcoming legislation, ensuring that claims are trustworthy and contribute meaningfully to reducing income disparities.

Watch this Living Income Community of Practice webinar:

Living income interventions are designed to close the income gap for small-scale producer households. A gender-sensitive approach is key. The social, cultural and legal barriers that affect gender equality also deeply negatively the incomes of female small-scale producers and female-headed households. ISEAL is carrying out research that applies a gender lens to develop gender transformative approaches to bring about a transformational shift in institutional polices and practices, as well as informal norms and power dynamics that sustain gender discrimination. 

To address the gap in knowledge and methodology and to embed gender in all dimensions of living income programmes, LICOP partners have worked to develop several guidelines and toolkits to support various stakeholders in their implementation efforts.

Read more about LICOP materials on gender focused living income interventions.

The "Advancing gender equality through sustainability systems" toolkit is produced as part of a multi-year partnership and provides a series of resources for voluntary systems and standards (VSS) to use to advance their thinking and action on gender equality either as an end in themselves or as means to achieving and sustaining other desirable standard outcomes:

Through the Living Income Community of Practice, ISEAL actively collaborates with partners to understand and integrate living income considerations into regulatory and due diligence frameworks. We have developed a learning series focused on living income and due diligence, facilitating knowledge exchange among stakeholders. Additionally, ISEAL contributed to the OECD's development of the "Handbook on Due Diligence for Enabling Living Incomes and Living Wages in Agriculture, Garment, and Footwear Supply Chains," providing practical guidance for companies to implement effective due diligence processes.

Use the handbook, its tools and guidance for businesses, credible sustainability systems and governments.

Watch this Living Income Community of Practice webinar on Due diligence for living income: Building fair and resilient supply.

ISEAL is continually reviewing promising approaches that create the incentives for small scale producers to adopt sustainable production practices and sustainable land use and for them earn a living income as a result. Adopting effective and inclusive approaches can help address the root causes and support poverty reduction measures. Taken to scale, these can contribute to addressing deforestation and sustainable resource management.

Alongside the grants of ISEAL’s Innovation Fund that supports sustainability systems to pilot innovative partnerships and approaches, we are also building momentum and promoting strategies that specifically improve producer incomes and adoption of sustainable practices that can be scaled. 

We are following two approaches tailored to different market contexts: one focused on small-scale producers engaged in sustainability systems, or in process of transition, that sell into national and international markets that value sustainability; the second focused on independent small-scale producers engaged in local and national markets that prioritise price and volume. The latter generally do not secure financial premiums for sustainability attributes. From 2025-2028, we are looking to promote and help develop the selected strategies for wider adaptation and replication.

ISEAL also works with Landscapes and Jurisdictional approaches. Read more about our work:

Explore interventions to improve income for small-scale producers in three distinct sectors - cocoa, cotton, and seafood. By examining challenges and opportunities across these sectors, the paper offers valuable insights for stakeholders, enabling more informed decisions in the design and development of livelihood programmes for small scale producers.