Assessing rural wellbeing through design of a farmer-focused survey methodology: The importance of cultural health, ease of use and farming specific questions

Abstract

There is limited data to baseline and track changes in farmer wellbeing. The aims of this study are to 1) review existing wellbeing assessment approaches, 2) identify key features of a farmer-focused wellbeing assessment, and 3) propose a farmer-focussed wellbeing assessment tool. We conducted a literature review of wellbeing assessment approaches within peer-reviewed literature and interviews with stakeholders to identify a wellbeing assessment approach for the agricultural sector. Key factors to incorporate into a farmer-focused assessment approach are: i) cultural health, which is especially important when measuring wellbeing amongst indigenous and recent immigrant farmers and workers; ii) farming-specific questions, using a combination of pre-existing and newly developed questions; and iii) ease of use, using a combination of short pulse and longer surveys depending on the survey context and aims. This paper contributes to the debate of how to measure wellbeing, which is useful for programme designers and developers. Furthermore, it provides a coherent review on wellbeing assessment approaches, which can be used to steer future research in this area. Despite the widespread focus on wellbeing, this is the first literature review for wellbeing approaches in the agricultural sector.