Measuring Net Income Change for Smallholder Farmers and Microentrepreneurs: A New Collaboration with Shell Foundation

I4DI is partnering with Shell Foundation to implement a series of rapid income impact assessments across four partner-led interventions in India and Nigeria. The objective is to generate a clearer understanding of how targeted clean energy and cold chain solutions are affecting the net incomes of smallholder farmers and microentrepreneurs.

The selected interventions include biodigesters (Sistema.bio), solar dryers (S4S), cold storage (InfiCold), and asset finance for informal retailers (Odyssey). While the business models vary, each initiative aims to enable income growth by reducing operational costs, increasing productivity, or expanding market access.

Reliable data on income change remains difficult to obtain in many development contexts, particularly when traditional baselines are missing or intervention uptake is uneven. In response, I4DI is applying a mixed-methods approach that combines income recall, dose-response analysis, qualitative enquiry, and secondary data triangulation. Customers are segmented based on adoption levels to approximate counterfactual groups, and outcome measures are aligned to Shell Foundation’s broader learning agenda on living income benchmarks and resilience.

Beyond identifying whether income has increased, the assessments will examine the scale and depth of change, time-to-impact, and income diversification patterns. The work also incorporates gender-disaggregated analysis and considers structural barriers that shape how different segments experience value from the interventions.

Findings will support Shell Foundation’s ongoing investment strategy and provide its partners with practical insights into where income effects are strongest, which customer segments are being reached, and what factors are influencing observed outcomes.

This collaboration reflects I4DI’s broader commitment to making income measurement more practical, adaptive, and decision-relevant. Future updates will share key findings from each assessment and implications for program design and investment targeting.