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Quality of life

This dimension is about the sensitivity that a practice has for the improvement of the quality of the life of the farmer and his or her livelihood. The Quality of Life dimension adopts the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) as developed by DFID. The quality of life equals a sustainable livelihood and can thus be seen as depending on the different identified capitals. For the purpose of assessing exemplary practices in conservation agriculture on the dimension of quality of life, we have adopted the following capitals as being of relevance: a.) the human capital; b.) the social capital; c.) the physical capital; d.) the natural capital, and e.) the financial capital.
- Human capital is defined by the OECD as “the knowledge, skills and competences and other attributes embodied in individuals that are relevant to economic activity”. (OECD, 1998[1]). It refers to the kinds and levels of education needed, to training demands and to required skills and technological knowledge. It also includes health and psychological well-being of the farmer.
- Social capital is the whole of social relations that are relevant in one way or the other for production purposes. “For the majority of writers it is defined in terms of networks, norms and trust, and the way these allow agents and institutions to be more effective in achieving common objectives” (Schuller[2]). It refers to community issues and collective organizational requirements. Issues that are of interest here are for instance: sensitivity to labor inputs and availability of labor, sensitivity to gender (un)balances, and sensitivity to cultural embeddings. Social capital also includes cultural embedding and appropriateness. A new practice can for instance be a continuation of an existing practice or the change to the new practice can be too vast, and the gap between the traditional practice and the new practice can turn out to be too big.
- Physical capital consists of non-human assets that are made by humans and are required for or used in production activities, e.g. technical equipment. But besides technical equipment, physical capital also includes infra-structural capital, which refers to communication infrastructures, roads, irrigation dams and any physical improvements made to nature.
- Natural capital refers to water, land, air, plants, etc... This capital is about the potential that nature offers. It is commonly divided into renewable resources (agricultural crops, vegetation, wild life), and, non-renewable resources (fossil fuels and mineral deposits).
- “Financial capital denotes the financial resources that people use to achieve their livelihood objectives” (DFID, ). It refers to the availability of cash or equivalents that people apply to improve their livelihood and their quality of life.

The 5 capitals cover the human, inter-human (social), extra-human (man-made artifacts), and non-human (nature) aspects of the quality of life. It is not necessarily so that the larger the capital, the higher the quality of life is. However, it is envisaged that the quality of life is subject to the qualitative existence of these capitals, individually and in relation to each other. The description of the dimension of the ‘quality of life’ should therefore include reviews of the characteristics of these capitals and score the amount of sensitivity to these capitals – A high score on this dimension means that the practice has a positive influence on the improvement of the quality of life of the farmers and is thus sensitive to issues related to human, social, physical, and natural capital.

[1] OECD (1998). Human Capital Investment: An International Comparison, Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

[2] www.open.ac.uk/lifelong-learning/papers/393B8E05-0008-65B9-0000015700000157_TomSchuller-paper.doc